Forecast: Sunny with Chance of Green

From his store on Robertson Boulevard in Beverly Hills, Calif., events industry newcomer Darryl Aken is spearheading a quiet revolution in event rentals.

Tranquil against the zip and zoom of cars outside, the flagship location of Girari Sustainable Event Furnishings is at once a furniture store, rental furnishings showroom and art gallery. The art, selected with a curator’s eye to complement the furniture, often goes out with the rental furnishings.

“It’s probably the first art gallery that surrounds a furniture store,” says Aken, adding, ruefully, how difficult this concept seems to be for people to apprehend.

In fact, it’s Aken’s aesthetic skills that are drawing planners and designers to what he calls a “soft contemporary” look. But there’s another selling point to the rental items the company offers. It’s among the first to bring to market rental furniture consisting in large part of recycled and “reclaimed” materials.

Although Aken isn’t shy about touting the sustainability of his products, his priorities are beautiful furniture first, sustainability second, he says.

It’s an attitude clients gravitate toward.

“What I liked about their approach is that the eco-friendly angle isn’t something that’s the primary sell to a client. It’s a value-added component,” says Michael Fargnoli, Sherman Oaks, Calif.-based Extraordinary Events’ creative director.

Fargnoli learned of Girari’s offerings when he attended a “Sustainable Lunch & Learn” session, a how-to on sustainable event design that the company has been offering several times a week this summer.

Reuse, Recycle…Reclaim?

Although Aken laments the challenge of finding quality recycled products, it hasn’t stopped him from using recycled aluminum to create the clean, lightly parabolic lines of his furniture. His lounge furniture uses reclaimed and recycled wood, foam that is majority-in-content recycled and 100 percent recycled polyester fabric.

According to Aken, he’s pioneered the process of recycling or “reclaiming” furniture.

“I had to teach my wood and upholstery people how to recycle [it], because it’s simply never been done,” he says. “I’ve invented everything so far.”

Much like a home that is gutted for remodeling, Aken strips used furniture down to the raw wood and builds from there. And that makes all the difference, in his view.

“Anyone can cut down a tree from a ‘sustainably managed’ forest, but there simply isn’t anything better than taking wood that was used as furniture and using it again,” he says.

His goal, he says, is to create a complete set of green furniture. He came one step closer to meeting that goal when Girari added 100 percent recycled glass dishware and glassware and 100 percent recycled aluminum vases and bowls to its event furnishings line in June. He also has plans to add a green event resource directory to his website.

A Gradual Awakening

Aken’s isn’t the only boutique event rental company with green products on the market. In mid-June, Signature Inc. Event Rentals launched Simply Green, a collection of eco-friendly furnishings. Items in the line — which includes banquettes, day beds, sofas, club chairs, ottomans, tables and accents — are 95 percent made of recycled materials.

According to Signature President Hayim Treitel, it was time for events to keep pace with other industries. “Environmentally friendly items are dominating every aspect of business, so we decided that the event industry should follow as well,” he wrote via e-mail.

Over at rental giant Classic Party Rentals, change is afoot as well.

Classic has largely taken a different tack, scrutinizing its processes more than its products. With its 25 locations across the country, these changes, although perhaps less glamorous, are certainly not insignificant.

For instance, Classic recently instituted a program across its network to recycle Velon, or vinyl taffeta, a decorative fabric that has traditionally been considered disposable. Picking up the discarded fabric just as it picks up rented tables, chairs or other items, the company estimates that it will turn in 350,000 pounds of it for recycling in a year.

Classic has also changed the way it looks at the hangers used to deliver linens. “Rather than just assuming they’re a one-time-use item, we bring hangers back and use them,” says Michael Miner, Classic’s vice president of marketing and strategic accounts. This ultimately mental shift — from seeing them as garbage to seeing them as inventory — will keep up to half a million hangers out of the dump annually, Miner estimates.

So What’s the Damage?

All this talk of sustainability is well and good, you may be saying, but are any of these furnishings as easy as on the budget as they are on the eye?

For now, eco-furnishings remain on the high end. Aken says the lower-priced line he considered creating ultimately wasn’t feasible, although he predicts that prices will eventually come down as the supply of sustainable materials increases. Treitel has also positioned his products in the high-end market.

Another issue is availability — Girari recently expanded to Las Vegas, and will ship to other locations, although this comes at a cost, of course. Signature has locations in the West and along the East Coast.

Is Sustainability Sustainable?

Event rental companies may be starting to climb onto the green bandwagon, but are these changes, well, sustainable?

Both the companies and their clients are optimistic, although for most, it’s not a top priority. (Indeed, event professionals from across the industry identified green meetings as the No. 3 trend affecting the industry, behind the greater use of technology and healthy food options, according to Event Solutions’ 2007 Annual Forecast.)

“Demand for sustainable products is increasing,” says Eric Nicoll, president and CEO of Corona del Mar, Calif.-based Azure Pacific Event Management. He has used Girari’s furnishings, and says inquiries about green event products are on the rise.

At Classic, Miner has a similar forecast.

“Our whole company has no doubt that this will continue to be a significant issue,” he says. “It’s important that we recognize that it’s significant now because it’s significant, not because it’s now.”