Earth Day & Sustainability

Oak View Group and the St. Charles Convention Center are committed to promoting environmental responsibility and sustainability. Our goal is to offer outstanding quality of service and mitigate the impact on the natural environment.

• Programming our escalators, HVAC, and lights based on our client’s schedules to conserve energy.
• Reducing the amount of energy wasted through the use of motion sensor lights, sinks, and toilets.
• Supplying each meeting room with a five-gallon water cooler to reduce the use of bottled water consumption.
• A single-stream recycling program and back of house composting program – both contribute greatly to our waste an diversion goals.
• Nearly all cleaning agents and materials used at the facility are environmentally friendly.
• Using only low-energy lighting where it’s most effective when skylights and ambient lighting aren’t enough.
• Providing options to conserve paper products: paperless billing, online exhibitor services ordering, recycle bins inside meeting rooms, and using dry erase boards instead of flip charts.
• Water pitchers and glassware are provided in our “Conference Package”, eliminating the use of plastic bottles.
• Using locally produced organic food menu options when available.

The back of house composting program has been in place since 2011. In 13 years of composing, the St. Charles Convention Center has composted 410,356 pounds of waste, diverting 170 tons of CO2 emissions. While the program has been in use for over a decade, in 2023 the SCCC renewed it’s commitment to the program, being more strict with what was composted and being sure to not throw away food waste that should be composted. Because of this dedication, the SCCC set a new record of annual waste, composting 144,886 pounds and nearly tripling the previous record set in 2022 at 52,307 pounds.

Each month the number of bins, the average weight of each bin, and the total weight composted is tracked. The SCCC receives an end of year report with this information. Busier months like October and December pick up weight compared to slower months, like January and February.

Learn more about the sustainability measures:
St. Charles Convention Center  Oak View Group