Of my now 15 years working in events, 13 of them were spent working very not-sustainable ones. That’s one of the reasons why I started this company…that and my love for nature and passion for protecting this planet, which started long before then.
You see, my family is from Costa Rica. We’re one of the world’s smallest countries, yet we’re known globally for two things - pristine natural landscapes and…you guessed it, sustainability. Last year, Costa Rica ran on 100% renewable energy for 299 days, and by the year 2021, they plan to ban all single-use plastics and be entirely carbon neutral. When they achieve this, they’ll be the first country to prove to the world that it can be done.
I don’t think I quite realized how impactful it was for me to visit Costa Rica as a kid. Each time we went, my mom would make it a point to have at least 1 day on the itinerary to go see something spectacular; whether it was a waterfall, rainforest, beach or volcano…we’d always make time for mother nature. Coming back home to flat, mostly-concrete Miami was harder with every visit.
Increasing prices on flights to Costa Rica made those visits less frequent as I got older but when I got my first job in events after college, I’d save every penny to make my way back. I remember feeling like I could breathe again just at the sight of the mountains on the flight in. It was that stark contrast of being in nature and then coming home to work events that created mountains of waste that opened my eyes to the big problems with events that I’m now dedicated to solving.
At first, these visits inspired me to take on environmental responsibility on a personal level. I started recycling and minimizing the use of plastic cups and water bottles, but then I would go work my events and see thousands of those things given out every hour on the hour. I remember once I saw a huge pile of plastic that had gotten swept up at the end of the night, and it dawned on me that in just a few hours, my events were quite possibly creating more waste than I could in my entire lifetime. That moment made me feel so absolutely powerless that my stint at sustainability abruptly ended and it was years until I would pick it back up again.
I left that job 4 years later to travel and upon my return, soon found myself working in events again… this time as my own business, marketing and producing elements of both concert and sporting events for the biggest resort in the Bahamas - my first client.
At first, working at this place felt like I had been awarded an amazing opportunity to be closer to nature. I’d often be “assigned” to go to the island and interact with dolphins or swim with giant manta-rays. It was a dream gig for me… or was it? I’ll never forget the shock of hearing someone say: “It’s nice to look at, but what we’re enjoying here is the imprisonment of literally thousands of animals and the waste of probably millions of gallons of water”… shit.
How had I not seen this? How disconnected had I been to be galavanting around this place feeling lucky to be here? I see now that it was all part of my process. That client and I eventually parted ways, but I continued working in concert events feeling increasingly unfulfilled. Sure, there was a cool-factor to being somewhat in the music industry, but somehow all of the events I worked now felt increasingly inauthentic and exorbitantly wasteful. I felt drained, lost and in need of new direction.
My heart yearned to travel again. I wanted a hard reset on life and my boyfriend was crazy enough to jump on the bandwagon. We moved out of our apartment, threw everything in storage, packed up the car and hit the road with our dog for what was supposed to be a 3-month stint to California and back. We ended up living on the road for 8 months and it was one of the greatest adventures of our lives. We visited 9 national parks, 11 national forests and over 30 state parks… each one increasingly reminding me of my love for this planet and desire to protect the environment. I knew then that I couldn’t go back to working in any field that wasn’t serving this purpose.
At first, I became hyper aware of my waste and committed to ditching single-use plastics as much as possible, for good this time. I was a champion for “Leaving No Trace,” beach cleanups and proper recycling, while becoming a lot more educated on what those terms meant and their true abilities to make a real difference. Because of that and my previous experience, I knew I would have to go further this time and that’s when things started to come into focus. I decided I would take my then 12 years of event experience and shift my path towards event sustainability. The how was not clear yet, but being in nature had made my why more solid than ever.
What happened next is already history... I returned to Miami with a sharp vision for what I wanted to work on. I was hungry to learn everything I could about it. I devoured books, attended conferences, begged experts for mentorship and sooner rather than later I really started to know what I was talking about. It really dawned on me then, that instead of events creating these huge environmental problems, they could use their influence to spread solutions to the greater environmental problems we have today. Beyond their own ability to operate more consciously, events serve as a training grounds for every person in attendance to expand their own environmental consciousness.
This is why Ascendance was born. I think the world needs people fully dedicated to inspiring events to make sustainable choices and to show their attendees how they can do the same. So, welcome to the world, Ascendance. Let's dance the planet back to health.
