Boston Green Tourism was started by Cleveland native Dan Ruben, who sees parallels between Boston and New York’s successful bids to host the 2004 Democratic and Republican national conventions and Cleveland’s bid for environmentally minded conventions and meetings. The connection is first cost saving, second reducing the overall ecological footprint of large gatherings.

Ruben was part of a large volunteer effort called the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Conventions (CERC), which pushed the cities and the parties to adopt an attitude that going green saves money and underscores their support for energy independence.

More than empty talk, the CERC acquired 122,100 credits to offset carbon emissions resulting from travel by convention-goers from their home states to and from Boston and New York. The credits were from coal mine methane recovery, landfill gas recovery, tropical reforestation, hydroelectric power, and a solar photovoltaic home lighting project. They persuaded General Motors to send eight hybrid buses to each convention. They purchased 500 Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs) to offset electricity use at the Fleet Center in Boston during the convention. The RECs were produced by wind turbines, a landfill gas facility, and a small-scale hydroelectric facility. And that just scratches the surface.

Ruben is convinced Cleveland can do even more.

So, how did a group of unaffiliated people manage to green the ’04 Democratic National Convention?

When Mayor Menino announced that Boston would host the Democratic Convention, a group of us said, “We’ll put our values on a world stage.” And so we did. We looked at The Olympics — there’s quite a lot to say if you’re going to throw an Olympics, you have to have a ‘green plan’. We made contacts with the city and the Democratic party. They each had a strong role, but, ultimately, the party’s responsible for everything that happens with the walls of the convention.

Did you have a good game plan of how you wanted to ‘green’ the convention?

We had some ideas about what we wanted to do, but we had neither funding nor staff. Nobody hired us to do this — unlike the Utah Olympics — this was a volunteer effort. So, we focused on the kind of things volunteers had energy to do. People said, ‘we want a fuel cell, a convention powered by renewables. We wanted to do something with recycling. We tried to influence the RFP process.

How should Cleveland look at the Boston experience and formulate a plan for not only a ‘green’ GOP convention, but all conventions?

I think you’ll be in a better position. Cleveland will have this document — this is what was done in 2004, and we need to do something similar or better in ‘08. In talking to a senior planner for the Dems in ’08, this is a hot issue. They (the GOP) can’t ignore this. At least, it’s something the Dems definitely want to do.

Why do you think the GOP is going to care if Cleveland says, we’ll green the ’08 convention — with all of the things they’re looking at in selecting a city?

It’s true, they’re going to make decisions on many items — security, transportation, hotel beds and can the city raise the $80 million to put this on. But, I do think this would be a helpful component if you want to demonstrate Republican values about energy independence. Publicize that you’re holding a carbon-neutral convention — which we did by purchasing carbon offsets.

How did you work with the Republicans to secure commitments to green the ’04 convention in New York City? What were some of the lessons you learned?

The GOP shunted us to the City of New York, and that turned out to be a big mistake because the parties are flush with money and staff and the city isn’t. Our fliers were not in the delegate packets — that is something that you should indeed do. But, bear in mind there are a thousand events — will you get preference?

So, what’s changed for the ’08 conventions?

The country — the average Joe is concerned about energy issues, and feels that the country is on the wrong path. Calls for energy independence are strong.

The key will be to get the message across that, ‘We’re here to make you look good, we’re here to demonstrate our local sustainable economy.’ You have to get local leadership involved. We went to (New York Governor George) Pataki’s office and (New York City Mayor Michael) Bloomberg’s office. It took awhile, but in the end it was Bloomberg who made the difference.

All right, what should we tell our local Convention and Visitor’s Bureau and Mayor Jackson?

You should have them both read pages 63-67 of our list of accomplishments.

How do you approach greening the convention and lodging industries from the stand point of economic development, how do you work with the CVBs and the hospitality industry?

Once we were done with the national conventions and wrote our report, we thought, what’s next? Let’s green the City of Boston. There’s the cost side of this — the hotels and convention center have huge energy bills. So, we had a green hotels seminar, and we hounded them.

Cleveland is somewhat different than Boston, which is a tier one convention city. Certain organizations will go to Cleveland because it’s less expensive. We used to be a filthy city, now you can see whales in the harbor and people can spend time at the ocean. Cleveland is putting its best foot forward. Pittsburg is doing it. They have the country’s greenest convention center. Cleveland could say we’re an environmentally conscious city. Will people come for green hotels and convention center? I don’t know, but if you get one convention because of it, that’s $1 million dollars.

It’s an investment. You’re not putting out a lot of money for a vague return. It’s like insulating your house; it has a return by cutting energy use. It insulates these institutions from the next shock in the energy market.

Have you seen a measurable effect on lessening the environmental impact of your hospitality?

We push hotels to be Energy Star certified. They can be more energy efficient than 83 percent of the buildings out there. Are you certified or not for convention centers? If you’re super motivated, you could go for LEED if you’re building a new convention center.

Do you think it takes a special event to spark a green tourism effort?

I think it’s hard to measure how many tourists you’re going to get. If Cleveland has a reputation of being a progressive city...I don’t know if we can even make that argument in Boston. In Portland, they attracted 17 health conscious conventions. They have the reputation for natural attractions and a clean beautiful city as a lure.

What can be done to bring about incremental change?

The approach I would take is talk to people in the city and people at the Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, and to the state office of travel and tourism and say, ‘Here’s what Boston’s doing, and Portland’s doing, and Pittsburgh. Here’s the argument for this – it could be low budget PR investment. Do you want to participate?

When Cleveland’s ready, call me back and we’ll talk more about specifics.