Go Green Expo NYC 2009: Greening the grift
by Rich AwnNew York, NY – All caught up in the Green grift, the Go Green Expo sprawled organically like a 250-headed pipe-and-draped green dragon, uncoiling it’s spiny tendrils all throughout the second floor of the 6th Avenue Hilton this past weekend.
On the surface what appeared a typical hot, flat, and crowded consumer expo quickly transformed into a seething den of snake oil shills, mad scientists, resourceful designers, greenwashers, environmental activists, TV personalities, and marketing gurus.
Appearing somewhat discheveled and a little crazed from the three days of eco-hucksterism, Cheif Organizer, Bradford Rand, took a moment amid the half eaten sandwiches and Marial Hemmingway cookies in the VIP lounge to speak with us.
A: I was inspired by Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth a couple of years back and we did a show in New York. Then we went and did a show in Los Angeles which was really amazing, over 10,000 people, 300 booths. And then we did a show in Philadelphia, we’re back in New York, and now we’re gonna take the show on the road. We’re looking at Miami, Minneapolis, we have Atlanta coming up in June, and Charlotte, North Carolina, perhaps Houston, Texas. Just any major city that we think might be a good fit for Go Green Expo and it’s exhibitors, we will take the show to.
Q: Do you have an event background?
A: Sure, I’ve been doing trade shows, job fairs, luxury events, and charity fundraisers for 15 years, I’ve done about 700 of them, and there was never a big eco-friendly trade show here in New York City until we decided to do one after we saw Al Gore’s Inconvenient Truth. And now there’s a lot of green shows all over the place, which is a good thing, it just kind of goes to show you that the public as well as business are now taking into account, the environment when they make purchases.
Q: Is it hard to sell green?
A: No. It’s not hard to sell green at all. Not these days. Especially because prices have come down, that is, light bulbs, hybrid cars, eco fashion, eco baby products, even solar panels, by just simple economics, when you make more of something, the price goes down. So now that we’re mass producing hybrid cars and solar panels and all the other products that I mentioned, the prices are starting to come down so they may be just a little bit more than the standard toxic or gas-guzzling car but they’re coming down. That makes it available to everyone now to go green.
Q: Do you think people are sort of getting wise to greenwashing?
A: That’s a tough question because large corporations or even small corporations for that matter, you know, you could always kind of fool the public but it usually doesn’t last.
Q: I think there’s a different definition of sustainability on different people’s bottom line.
A: Just an example of greenwashing like “clean coal.” That’s an oxymoron. You’re still putting pollutants into the air, you’re still chopping the tops of mountains off. You know, that is not, at least at this point with our technology, it’s not clean, it’s far from clean. Solar is clean. Water energy is clean. Geothermal and wind power are clean sources of energy and if we dedicated as much as we spend on foreign oil, we could upgrade our grid, and we could be off of foreign oil within about 5 years, and also, at the same time, not only be self-sustaining but a cleaner environment. So, the benefits are not just economic but they’re health. I mean, the life expectancy of a coal miner is I’m sure much less than the operator of a wind turbine.
Q: Our guest has been Bradford Rand, Organizer of the Go Green Expo. Visit GoGreenExpo.com.
A: Yes, you can see all the speakers and all the products if you can’t make it to the show. Visit the website and see the products for yourself. Of course, it’s always recommended to do your own research before you buy anything because there is always a more earth-friendly alternative than what you think is out there.
Q: What’s the next city and date?
A: At the end of June we’re gonna be in Atlanta, Georgia at the Cobb Galleria Center.
Check back all week for a steady stream of sound bytes from the exhibitors themselves as part of our special Earth Day Week Live Blogging Special!
Photo of Mr. Rand courtesy of Organic Works.
April 21st, 2009 at 9:45 pm
Go Green Expo is produced by Expo International, the very same events production company that continues to produce “Tech Expo TOP SECRET”, an internet job fair for military personnel, as well as job fairs for aniti-environment military contractors such as Northrop Grumman, Boeing, and Booz Allen Hamilton.
Even worse, the company’s self righteous grand wizard, Bradford Rand, is the proprietor of none other than RAND LUXURY (www.randluxury.com) a trade show dedicated to wretched excess beyond compare and catering to the very ideas that are ruining the planet.
According to RAND’s own website: “the RAND team is best known for its “Evening of Luxury” events where RAND links up with luxury auto manufacturers to support the launch of their newest and hottest automobiles. In the past year alone, RAND aligned with Lamborghini, Bugatti, Rolls-Royce, Aston Martin, Bentley & Spyker. Adjacent to these fine motorcars, RAND creates a luxury lifestyle experience by inviting complementary brands to showcase their goods and services to the distinguished list of guests that RAND invites to its events.”
The site continues to cite its other luxury brands, such as Marquis Jet, Citation Shares and Lufthansa Private Jet Services. All of which, mind you, are NOT considered eco-friendly or progressively fighting climate change.
According to Rand’s own corporate bio: “Bradford also co-founded New York’s largest fine motor auction & luxury lifestyle expo in 2005; Rand/Workman. The show was one of the region’s most publicized events of its kind; with over $35 million dollars in automotive bids, over $2 million in sales from the wine auction, over 100 luxury sponsors & exhibitors and a showcasing of some of the rarest automobiles in the world.”
“As a true automotive enthusiast, Bradford has owned & restored both Ferraris and Porsches.”
Good job, Bradford. Contribute even more to our oil addiction by putting even more gas-guzzling, wretchedly over-indulgent cars on the road. Hey, as long as your pockets are “green”, who cares, right?
April 22nd, 2009 at 11:32 am
WOW! Thank you for this in-depth reply!
Looks like this is Rand’s way of counter balancing all the greed and excess… with perhaps more greed and excess packaged neatly branded with a “green” stamp of consumer approval. Regardless of Mr. Rand’s motives (which are quite plain), these expos go on in every category of commerce everywhere, all the time, in an endless stream of booths and carpetbaggers to fill them; he’s really just the agent of chaos that organizes them. I tried to get him to get real with my question about “greenwashing” but he glazed it over with the the numbing banality that only a master salesman can conjure. I’ll say that it’s merely my job to present the profiles of people making things happen now and my opinion matters little but Rand’s character, professional path, and motives don’t interfere with the awesome time I had to spend with some of the genuine innovators at his show.