Aha! - Mo'olelo's GREEN Guidelines

Here's an interesting story about the Mo'olelo Performing Arts Company, based out of San Diego, and their GREEN Theatre Categories & Sustainable Guidelines that they first developed and adopted back in 2007. Some of their new practices are quite innovative, others more basic and really just common sense now-adays (like having plenty of recycling bins available.) But what I think is of particular interest here is that Mo'olelo adopted a clear and systematic approach to these issues. They've committed to their new practices in writing and treated their company as a whole organism, paying specific and organized attention to every aspect of their resource consumption. This is significantly different from a more haphazard and piecemeal implementation of ecologically-friendly practices. In the latter, not only is progress hampered by potentially missing opportunities for improvement that would be caught by a more detailed analysis, but there's also the very real possibility of backsliding, due to new practices being implemented informally by individuals without total buy-in from the complete company.

Also of note, Mo'olelo was able to develop these guidelines with help from a grant offered by TCG's Aha! Project, which offers grants to member theaters to develop and then implement innovations in theatre production. The blog for this program is worth checking out just for the exposure to some new and exciting ideas.