SHIFT Attains First STOKE Event Certification

SAN DIEGO, CA – The SHIFT Festival 2017, held in Jackson Hole, WY, Nov. 1-3, 2017, has become the first certified sustainable event by STOKE Certified.

This year’s SHIFT was evaluated against 92 criteria and 303 compliance indicators by a local independent evaluator, Mac Dukart. The event achieved a compliance score of 79% across all four categories of sustainability performance, which is above the minimum threshold of 70% for STOKE Events certification.

Christian Beckwith, Director of SHIFT, stated, “We have been working towards this goal for two years and we’re honored to not only have earned the recognition as a sustainable event, but to also be the first STOKE Certified Event. Working with STOKE to improve the environmental and social responsibility of our event was a perfect match and complementary to the evolution of SHIFT over these last few years.”

Chris Perkins, Marketing Coordinator for SHIFT, concurred. “The sustainable event management tools and templates STOKE provided along with their expertise greatly reduced the barrier to entry and now we have a proven system we can replicate and enhance each year.”

In 2015, SHIFT became the first adopter of the STOKE Events program. Event producers began preparing for a STOKE Benchmark at their 2016 event in 2016 when they set goals to become a zero waste and clean energy event in 2017.

Through STOKE’s collaborative approach to local stakeholder engagement, SHIFT leveraged numerous community partnerships and national sponsors to reach their sustainability goals, including:

• Sourcing 100% renewable energy for the event through the Lower Valley Energy Green Power Program, which purchases clean energy from the Horse Butte wind farm south of Idaho Falls, ID and the Foote Creek wind farm between Rawlins and Laramie, WY.
• Through a partnership with Westbank Sanitation and Teton County Integrated Waste and Recycling, SHIFT recycled and composted all of its waste to become a zero-waste event. Klean Kanteen provided aluminum pint cups to all pass holders. Attendees who posted photos of themselves participating in zero waste efforts were entered into a raffle to win a jacket from local apparel company, Stio.
• The People’s Banquet sourced food from all local farms in Wyoming and Idaho thanks to a creative fermented approach to the menu from Slow Foods in the Tetons due to the time of year.
• SHIFT’s carbon footprint of 122.42 metric tons of CO2 included 5.65 tons of avoided CO2 emissions thanks to carpool strategies, zero waste efforts, and the Green Power program. The Scope 3 emissions of attendee and vendor travel, which made up 99% of the event’s emissions, are being offset through a reforestation project in the Rocky Mountain West through the National Forest Foundation (NFF). SHIFT’s donation will plant 213 trees on public lands in their backyard, which should sequester 123 tons of carbon over 100 years based on the types of species planted according to the NFF. SHIFT hopes to find a local verified carbon offset project in 2018.
• Over $27,000 in scholarships are offered to those in the Emerging Leaders Program (ELP) to cover cost of attending the ELP and SHIFT Summit and 50% off tickets for the SHIFT Summit are offered to college students. Innovative nonprofit organizations that leverage outdoor recreation for conservation gains are honored as SHIFT Award Official Selections through the SHIFT for the Planet forum which helps connect these organizations with funding sources.
• SHIFT staff and volunteers educate surrounding communities about the importance of zero waste efforts at Teton Science Schools as well as the 100% Green Power adoption for local residents through Lower Valley Energy and Energy Conservation Works.
• Paperless ticketing, communication, raffling, and networking resources are all provided through the Whova App.

SHIFT conducts year-round engagement and advocacy work to protect public lands. For 2017 they hosted an evening keynote called “Bears Ears: 10,000 Years of Public Land” which included presentations and advocacy resources from the Native American organization, Utah Diné Bikéyah.

Keep it Public, Wyoming also provided letter-writing opportunities for attendees to urge public officials to protect public lands and anyone who wrote a postcard was entered into the raffle.

“As an event that mobilizes a national community of diverse and passionate individuals and organizations who are fighting to protect and enjoy our public lands, especially in today’s political climate—I couldn’t think of a better organization to launch with the STOKE Events program. I’m extremely proud of SHIFT’s commitment to the process over the last two years and look forward to seeing them progress from here,” said STOKE Certified Co-Founder, Carl Kish.

For a detailed list of their best practices with photographs, visit their STOKE Certified profile at http://www.stokecertified.com/members/shift or visit SHIFT’s website to learn more at https://shiftjh.org/2019/.

About STOKE Certified

STOKE (Sustainable Tourism Operator’s Kit for Evaluation) Certified is the world’s first sustainability certification program for surf and ski tourism operators and destinations. Through its network of independent evaluators, STOKE verifies the legitimacy of sustainability claims and provides transparency for the public through its certification programs—STOKE Surf and STOKE Snow. STOKE Surf has member properties in Fiji, the Mentawai Islands, Costa Rica, Portugal, Liberia, Baja California, the Telo Islands, and the Philippines, while STOKE Snow has members in California, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, and Maine. For more information on STOKE’s members, sector specific tools and templates, and certification process, go to http://www.stokecertified.com/

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