ISPA Sustainability Conference 2023: End-of-Day Recap with Waynette Goodson and Kathryn Greene

Join Waynette Goodson, Managing Editor of BedTimes and Sleep Savvy magazines, and Senior Editor Kathryn Greene as they wrap up the second annual ISPA Sustainability Conference. They share insights from the event, including the importance of sustainability in the mattress industry and the diverse approaches businesses can take.

Discover key takeaways and stay tuned for exclusive content in BedTimes and Sleep Savvy magazines. Don’t miss the discussion on communicating sustainability to consumers and the latest BSC sustainability research findings.

Transcript

Waynette Goodson
It’s Waynette Goodson. I’m your managing editor of BedTimes and Sleep Savvy magazines. I’m here today with Kathryn Greene, our senior editor. Wow, everybody, we are at our second annual ISPA Sustainability Conference. And this is your end-of-day wrap. Kathryn, what do you think? Well, this was my very first conference for sustainability, so I was very excited to just kind of – the panels built on one another.

Kathryn Greene
You know, the information throughout the day, I was super impressed. And one of the most important things I learned is that there’s really no wrong way to go about sustainability. Every business is so different, and it’s about finding your priorities and starting from there.

Waynette Goodson
Right, Right. It’s kind of like that old saying start by starting. The main thing is just to get started. What I want to say is, Wow, we have had such a great attendance this year compared to last year. At the last minute, we had this swelling of people signing up, and we actually had around 200 participants today, 200 attendees. It was a packed room.

No doubt sustainability is a very popular topic. Now for me, we led off with our keynote speaker, Peter Cooke, and I love Peter’s approach. Hey, this might take two years, it might take ten years, but if you just get started with a baseline and then benchmark, you might get started with something so simple, like just changing your lighting to LED light.

So you just look at your material waste, you look at your energy waste, and then you just start from there. So, it’s not a sprint when it comes to sustainability. It’s a marathon. And we just got so many nuggets of what you can take with you. Now, for those who missed today’s conference, if you look for your November issue of BedTimes magazine, I will write up all the key takeaways from every single speaker.

Waynette Goodson
And now, Kathryn, you have something planned for Sleep Savvy. Tell them about this.

Kathryn Greene

We do. We had a fabulous panel today about communicating your sustainability story to consumers. And so I’ll have that exclusive for you on SleepSavvyMagazine.com sometime next week.

Waynette Goodson

And that was our retailer panel. What I loved about it is they said, hey, it’s not enough just to be sustainable. You have to get your story out to consumers. So, if you’re a store, you need that in-store communication. You need to educate your RSAs. Your website should tell that story. And that’s a great story to tell because if you look at our latest BSC sustainability research, which is also coming your way, consumers are still asking for this. It’s still very important for consumers.

Waynette Goodson
So, Kathryn, congratulations on your first-ever sustainability conference. And as ever, you all have a great night’s sleep.