Sustainable Event Practices
A strong commitment to sustainability has always been a part of our business from the beginning out of necessity more than any other reason. We are off-grid because our farm literally does not connect to any local utilities, water or internet. And we live on our farm - we don’t want to use harmful pesticides or herbicides because we personally do not want to be exposed to those things! Of course we care deeply about our island and our planet and want to see it treated with respect as well. So with all of that in mind, we have the following venue features and policies for our events.
Solar Power:
Our power comes from a large array of solar panels and a bank of lithium batteries to store the solar power overnight. Usually solar power is enough to power our entire farm, but occasionally the weather is so gloomy that we do not get enough from the sun to power everything. For those days, we have a large off-grid automatic backup generator. And we have another backup to that backup just in case!
Rain Water:
We have 110,000 gallons of catchment tanks that we fill by catching rain water off of our roofs. That water is filtered through carbon and paper filters for taste, smell and particulates and then goes through a UV filter for safety.
Native plants and landscaping:
Our farm sits on land that was old growth ohia forest before it was (mostly) cleared for agriculture. It’s our goal to maintain as much of that forest as possible, especially in light of Rapid Ohia Death (a devastating disease affecting these beautiful and important trees). We have a variety of different ohia throughout our coffee orchard (as well as the rest of the farm) and are actively seed saving and planting new trees. In addition to ohia, it is also my goal to cultivate and maintain other native plants like uluhe fern, Palapalai fern, hapu’u fern and koa trees. These plants and trees, for the most part, grow on their own - the big challenge for us is not allowing non-natives and invasives to take them over!
Disposable event “waste”:
Events always come with a lot of trash - whether that is in the form of boxes of things shipped here, excess packaging or disposable plates, cups etc. While we cannot completely prevent all of this waste, our policies and pricing were specifically crafted with the intention to limit this waste as much as possible from going to the landfill. First, we do not allow single use plastic, styrofoam or waxed cardboard for catering. Clients who want to use disposables must use biodegradable cardboard, wood and leaf options. We have a type of wet wood chipper that allows us to shred these items and then use them for mulching our gardens and coffee trees.
Second, we have reusable rentals for glassware, plates, flatware etc. that are set at a price point low enough to hopefully encourage most if not all of our clients to choose reusable options.
Some waste, most notably the large amount of recyclables produced from the bar service at every event, are not really preventable. But we do recycle all of the glass, aluminum and plastic from the bar service at our events.
Food waste:
Events have a lot of food waste! All of the food left over from events (that no one wants to eat of course!) as well as all of the plate scrapings and kitchen scraps go into a food bucket that we give our chickens. They pretty much eat anything, but the things they don’t eat just biodegrade and we add them to our compost.
Florals:
Florals ordered through us will come from Lalamilo Flower Girl, a local flower farmer and florist who uses flowers she grows herself and forages in all of her arrangements. Clients can source their flowers elsewhere if they prefer not to order through the farm. However, we strongly prefer clients to use local florals and have priced our florals to incentivize clients to buy local!
Post event, any florals not taken home by clients are disposed of using the following procedure: first, event staff are given the option to take florals home to enjoy, then after that, any extra florals that still look nice are dropped off with Hospice of Kona. Then anything left after that (usually just greenery or flowers that are wilty or bad looking) are fed to our goats and/or composted if they are not healthy for goats.
Kegged beers:
Beer bottles and cans are one of the largest producers of trash at our events. We have always had a kegerator, but in the past we have charged clients $75 to use the kegerator (to pay for cleaning the lines, the labor of setup and the CO2 and nitrogen). However, as part of our commitment to reducing the amount of recyclables and waste produced by our events, for all Full Venue Rentals booked in the New Venue space, we will now be renting the kegerator to clients for $15 (just enough to cover the price of the CO2) to incentivize more couples to choose kegged beer. And in addition to being better for the environment, draft beer is better tasting! So it is really a win/win. And for clients who are concerned about having enough beer drinkers to make use of a keg, we will connect you with the other couples with wedding dates near yours to facilitate keg sharing!
