Overview

 

IDFA's Dairy Sustainability Symposium is your ticket to greener pastures and greener profits. Life cycle assessments, water scarcity, sustainability reporting and metrics and innovations will be among the hot topics discussed during this year's Symposium. Sustainability is the business model for every successful business. How green are you?

The Symposium is designed to help you understand sustainability and target ways to decrease your carbon footprint while you increase your efficiency. It will provide the latest and greatest sustainability information in the dairy industry. Come hear the experts and see the evidence.

Sustainability is the business model for every successful business. How green are you?

Who should attend?

Any member of the dairy industry or related business who is looking for new ways to reduce your company’s carbon footprint and increase cost savings is welcome to participate.

 

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Agenda

Day One
Wednesday, May 30

7:30 - 8:00 a.m.	Registration and Continental Breakfast
8:00 - 8:15 a.m.	Welcome and Introduction Speaker: Clay Detlefsen, Vice President, Regulatory Affairs and Counsel, International Dairy Foods Association
8:15 - 9:00 a.m.	Six Questions for Success in Today’s Sustainability Marketplace Based on the connection between personal and planetary health, the LOHAS (Lifestyles Of Health  And Sustainability) concept is one of the hottest trends in today’s mainstream marketplace and one of the latest consumer trends in sustainability. LOHAS describes an integrated, rapidly growing market for goods and services that appeals to consumers who have a meaningful sense of environmental and social responsibility and incorporate those values into their purchase decisions. Learn about the latest market trends, global consumer insight, NMI’s LOHAS consumer segmentation model, and much more. Explore new, breakthrough ways in which you can leverage LOHAS trends into your business strategy to become part of this revolution. Based on NMI studies of more than twelve years and 500,000 consumers in 23 countries, trend spotter Steve French will address the following six questions for success: Recession impact? Are all consumers getting greener? Which demographic is best? Green products or operations? Global or Local? Information vs. information overload? Speaker: Steve French, Managing Partner, Natural Marketing Institute
9:00 - 10:00 a.m.	Annual Sustainability Update by the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy Fleet Smart The dairy transportation industry is facing both economic and environmental challenges. Profit margins are being squeezed, while prices are rising on the diesel fuel used to transport fluid milk. Diesel fuel also contributes to the industry’s greenhouse gas emissions, amounting to 2.7 million metric tons each year. Adopting fuel-efficiency best practices can save trucking companies a substantial amount in fuel costs, while also reducing emissions. This is a win-win for the dairy industry and the environment. Cheese and Whey Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) This LCA is a survey of mozzarella and cheddar cheese.  The data set was compiled through surveys representing approximately 20 percent of United States cheese processing capacity and more than 500 farms to ensure an accurate reflection of the U.S. dairy industry. Technical findings have been submitted for publication in a scientific journal and results have been be reviewed and analyzed by an industry wide task force. Top line findings indicate that processors seeking to reduce the environmental impact of cheese production should focus on reducing the environmental impact of milk as a key ingredient; and secondarily, on improving energy management and wastewater treatment practices Speakers: Gail Barnes, Ph.D., M.B.L., Vice President, Technology & Packaging, Dairy Management, Inc. Darin Nutter, Associate Professor, University of Arkansas
10:00 - 10:15 a.m.	Break
10:15 - 11:00 a.m.	Process Optimization Modeling Tools Food companies have been on the sustainability path for many years. In the case of Cargill, the company spends over $1.5 billion annually on energy and has aggressive corporate goals for reduction of energy, water and carbon reduction The engineering and modeling capability developed in Cargill is unique to the industry.  Its engineering group includes more than 20 chemical engineers with advanced degrees and experienced in a wide array of food production processes. The group has developed an agro-food library of modeling tools enabling the modeling of an entire production facility, including all key elements of a dairy production facility. With these tools, engineers compute mass balance and energy balance for any given production facility, to identify why waste exists, where it is present and how best to optimize the process to reduce waste, water, energy whilst improving the production capability of the plant. Speaker: Dave Ward, General Manager, Cargill, Cargill Process Optimizers
11:00 - 11:45 a.m.	Sustainability from Farm to Fork - an Engineer's Perspective How do you view sustainability - an expense, an opportunity, or a way of doing business? What are the real risks to your business?  Capitalizing on the opportunities sustainability offers to mitigate business risks and address customer expectations will require a different point of view going forward. It will require bigger thinking and a broader team of experts so you can continue to report positive results in your corporate responsibility report and capture efficiencies within your plant operations that will make a real difference to your bottom line. From an engineer's perspective, thinking bigger involves larger and more complex initiatives that ultimately pay off. Speaker: Scott Sannes, Principal, Short Elliott Hendrickson Inc.
11:45 a.m. - 12:45 p.m.	Networking Lunch
12:45 - 1:30 p.m.	What are the Right Strategies for Sustainable Packaging? Sustainability is reshaping the competitive landscape in the food/beverage industry. Portola Packaging strives to use natural resources effectively and responsibly by managing energy use, reducing waste, and recycling where possible. Drawing on this experience, the session will identify the challenges to understand what green-conscious consumers and consumer products companies expect from packaging and packaging suppliers and examine ways to minimize environmental impact. This will be in conjunction with Portola’s participation in the CCMA (Closure & Container Manufacturers Association) Sustainability initiatives. Speaker: Roy Robinson, Vice President, Business Development, Portola Packaging, Inc. Mike Capelli, Marketing Manager, NOVA Chemicals
1:30 - 2:15 p.m.	Benchmarking the Environmental Impact of Milk Packaging The environmental impact of packaged milk includes the complete dairy delivery system, spanning the production of packaging material through processing to product consumption and disposal by the consumer. This presentation will share the results of a packaging and processing life cycle analysis that was completed in 2010.  The findings will allow processors, packaging material manufacturers and retailers to benchmark the environmental impact of fluid milk packaging and drive innovation based on sound science. Speakers: Gail Barnes, Vice President, Technology & Packaging, Dairy Management Inc.
2:15 - 3:00 p.m.	Dairy Plant Smart Initiative and Dairy Processor Case Studies The Dairy Plant Smart initiative was established to help dairy processors reduce their carbon footprint through the implementation of cost-effective energy conservation measures.  This presentation will provide an update on the Dairy Plant Smart program and an overview of published energy efficiency best practice case studies shared by dairy processors.  In addition, an explanation of how an energy management program can help a company's bottom line will be provided. Speaker: Darin Nutter, Associate Professor, University of Arkansas
3:00 - 3:15 p.m.	Break
3:15 - 4:00 p.m.	Introducing The Fluid Milk Simulation Tool The Dairy and Functional Foods Research Unit, Eastern Regional Research Center, Agricultural Research Service, has developed a generic fluid milk processing simulation model. This simulation model will allow the dairy and food processing industries to evaluate the impact of alternative energy management systems and processing technologies directly on a model of their plant and provide energy, greenhouse gas and economic analysis.  Future versions will work for other dairy products such as cheese. Learn about the tool and the future of dairy plant design. Speaker: Peggy Tomasula, Research Leader, Agriculture Research Service, USDA
4:00 - 4:45 p.m.	Learning the Environmental Benefit of Packaging ORBIS is rolling out an environmental calculator for secondary packaging material that was developed with Franklin Associates, a non-profit life cycle assessment company that works with Wal-Mart and the EPA.  This session will review the model to better understand how it will quantify the environmental benefit of packaging using LCA methodology. Speaker: Bob Klimko, Director, Marketing, Food & Beverage, ORBIS Corporation
4:45 p.m.	Adjourn

Day Two
Thursday, May 31

7:30 - 8:00 a.m.	Continental Breakfast
8:00 - 8:05 a.m.	Welcome
8:05 - 8:35 a.m.	Smartway Transport The EPA Smartway Transport partnership has provided the transportation industry with direct economic and lasting non-economic benefits. This session will help you learn ways to reduce your carbon footprints and transportation costs at the same time. Speaker: Mark Adams, Vice President, Transportation Solutions, Quickway Services, Inc.
8:35 - 9:30 a.m.	Bundling Technology and Services to Achieve Energy Neutrality This session will look at technologies, services, hardware and software solutions that help deliver on your sustainability goals.  Scenarios will be presented that involve reducing usage, recycling and cogeneration in use today.  A total off-the-shelf bundled solution will be presented to show you how to leverage pieces of the puzzle from a variety of companies and sources. Speaker: Rudy Westervelt, President, Power In Learning
9:30 - 10:10 a.m.	Identifying Cost- and Energy-Savings Opportunities Using Data Modern dairy production facilities are generating data at amazing rates, data that could allow easier identification of water and energy savings opportunities if used correctly. Ecolab has used several different approaches to identify opportunities to optimize Clean-in-Place (CIP) procedures; and now is looking to add a new service based on a software platform that will work with any data from any Programmable Logic Control (PLC) system. The service helps customers that cannot afford the large capital outlay for software, or do not have the resources or staff at each facility to use constantly manage and monitor the data. Speaker: Joseph Curran, Scientist, Food and Beverage RD&E, Ecolab
10:10 - 10:40 a.m.	Break
10:40 a.m. - 12:10 p.m.	Revisited  & New Technologies With the wide scale adoption of fracking wells and the drive for a reduced carbon economy, the world as we know it has changed. These market forces have made old concepts new again. Calvin Wohlert will discuss how cogeneration is now a viable opportunity for many dairy plants and how it can provide significant benefits in terms of utility cost savings, risk mitigation, and carbon footprint reduction. Cogeneration is not always what automatically comes to most peoples mind and it can often be deployed on a smaller scale if you’re willing to think creatively about what the term cogeneration actually means. Last year CEO Gilad Almogy explained how his company, Cogenra Solar, is reducing the costs of electricity and heat with a new distributed solar cogeneration system.  It combines photovoltaic and hot water collection to deliver low-cost electricity and heat generation for commercial, industrial and government clients. Almogy returns this year to tell us the particulars of the first dairy solar cogeneration installation in northern California and provide updates on current rebates and incentives available for renewable energy. Recent changes in the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance (PMO) have opened new opportunities for reducing disinfection chemicals and saving water in dairy processing. Learn how to audit your water integrity, evaluate your water footprint and improve the eco-efficiency of your water use.  Phyllis Posy will walk you through these new opportunities. Speakers: Calvin Wohlert, Principal, Solution Dynamics, LLC Eric Brown, Director, U.S. Sales, CoGenra Phyllis Posy, Vice President, Strategic Services & Regulatory Affairs, Atlantium Technologies Ltd.
12:15 p.m.	Adjourn

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Hotel and Travel Information

The 2012 Dairy Sustainability Symposium will be held at the Hilton Chicago in Chicago, Illinois. The downtown Chicago hotel location makes it easy to access all that Chicago has to offer including Soldier Field, United Center, US Cellular Field, Grant Park, Lake Michigan, and Industry and both State Street and Magnificent Mile Shopping. The Hilton Chicago hotel is also near Shedd Aquarium, Field Museum, Adler Planetarium and The Museum of Science and Industry making it the ideal choice for any meeting.

The deadline to secure a room at IDFA's special room rate of $169 has passed. If you still require a room, please contact Paxton Styles at pstyles@idfa.org or 202-220-3532.

Check-in time is 3:00 p.m. and check-out time is noon.

Green Achievements

• Green Seal Environmental Standard for Lodging Properties - Bronze Certification
• Illinois Hospitality and Lodging Association (IHLA) 2008 Green Energy Program
• IHLA 2008 Recycling and Waste Minimization Program & Award
• Illinois Recycling Association (IRA) Outstanding Hospitality Industry Recycling Program - 2008 & 2009
• Illinois Association of Park Districs Green Exhibitor Award - 2009

Member of

• Green Meetings Industry Council
• Convene Green Alliance

Address
720 South Michigan Ave.
Chicago, IL 60605
Tel: (312) 922-4400
Fax: (312) 922-5240
Website

Services and Amenities

• Business Center
• Concierge Desk
• Laundry/Valet Service
• Room Service
• Safety Deposit Box
• Shoe Shine Stand
• Fitness Room
• Jogging Track
• Pool

Dining

Kitty O'Sheas
Enjoy a bit of old Ireland in this authentic Irish pub. Open since 1986, Kitty's is as close as you'll come to the Emerald Isle featuring Irish fare like fish & chips, shepard's pie, just to name a few delights. Irish spirits and live Irish entertainment.

Hours:
Sunday to Thursday: 11:00 a.m. – 1:00 a.m.

Friday and Saturday: 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 a.m.

Lakeside Green Lounge
American fare with a focus on fresh and seasonal ingredients.

Hours:
Sunday - Saturday: 6:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.

The Pavilion
As the Hilton Chicago's casual all-day dining restaurant, the Pavilion features the Signature Hilton Breakfast buffet, including over 40 delectable items and a perfect start to your morning. Through lunch, The Pavilion offers a wide array of contemporary sandwich and salad options that are ideal for a quick power lunch or a relaxing mid-day meal. Finally, The Pavilion presents its eclectic dinner menu which includes fresh seafood, savory pasta and hand-cut steaks.

Hours:
Sunday - Saturday: 6:00 a.m. - 10:00 p.m.

Local Attractions

• Field Museum
• Shedd Aquarium
• Chicago Art Institute
• Millennium Park
• Grant Park
• Lake Michigan
• Buckingham Fountain

Getting to Chicago

Getting There by Air:
Chicago is served by O'Hare International Airport and Chicago Midway Airport. We are pleased to announce discounts with American, Delta and United Airlines as our partners for the Dairy Sustainability Symposium. The following discounts are available:

American Airlines
IDFA has partnered with American Airlines to provide our attendees a 5 percent discount for the 2012 Dairy Sustainability Symposium in Chicago. The valid travel dates for this discount are May 27 to June 3, 2012. You can easily access American’s fares and apply this discount by going to www.aa.com to book your flight. Place Promotion Code 9652BM in the promotion code box and your discount will be calculated automatically. This special discount is valid off any applicable published fares listed for American Airlines, American Eagle and American Connection. International originating guests will need to contact your local reservation number and refer to the Promotion Code.

You may also call (800) 433-1790 to book your flights, please refer to Promotion Code 9652BM when you call. Please note there is a reservation service charge for all tickets issued by phone. Please use our preferred partner, American Airlines when you can because of the benefits provided to you as a traveler and to our organization for extended partner value.

Promotion Code: 9652BM

Delta
Delta is pleased to offer discounted airfares. Use WorldFile/Ticket Designator NM8D7 to purchase your tickets and discounts from 2 to 7 percent will be applied. Please call (800) 328-1111 for reservations.

United/Continental Airlines
United/Continental Airlines offer discounts off published fares of 2 to 10 percent.  Valid travel dates are May 29 to June 3, 2012. Book your reservations online at www.united.com for maximum savings and receive an additional 3 percent discount off the published fares. Click on www.united.com, choose your flight times and access your meeting discounts by inserting ZKZC496527 in the offer code box. Or you may call your travel professional or United Meetings at (800) 468-7022 ($25 service fee). Refer to Z Code ZKZC and Agreement Code 496527. This information applies to both United and Continental Airlines reservations.

Getting to the Hilton Chicago

Driving Directions

From O'Hare International Airport:
Follow signs for I-190 East. Take I-190 to I-90 East. I-90 will merge with I-94. Take 1-90/94 approximately 18 miles to Jackson Street. Exit Jackson Street. Drive ¼ mile on Jackson Street.Turn right on Michigan Avenue. Hotel is five blocks down.

From Midway Airport (12.4 miles):
Take I-55 North to Chicago North on Lakeshore Drive. Turn Left onto Balbo. Two Blocks to hotel on left.

Alternate Transportation

Shuttle Fee: $20 from Midway Airport        $25 from O'Hare International Airport

Estimated Taxi Fare: $25 - 30 (one way) from both Midway and O'Hare International Airport

 

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Registration Tips

1. When will the 2012 Dairy Sustainability Symposium be held?
IDFA's Dairy Sustainability Symposium will be held Wednesday, May 30 through Thursday, May 31, 2012.

2. Why should I attend the Dairy Sustainability Symposium?
The 2012 Dairy Sustainability Symposium sessions are designed to bring you up to date on the most current issues and solutions the industry has to offer. Attendees will hear highlights of successful efforts and review initiatives currently underway in other food industries.

3. Who attends the Dairy Sustainability Symposium?
Whether you’re a newly appointed sustainability “expert” or a concerned steward looking for new ways to reduce your company’s carbon footprint and increase your cost-savings, this is the place to be.

4. Will there be exhibits?
Yes, there are table-top exhibits. Table top exhibits cost $500. This price does not include the cost of registration. If you would like to exhibit at the Dairy Sustainability Symposium, please contact Paxton Styles, Meetings & Educational Services Coordinator, at pstyles@idfa.org.

5. Which hotel has been reserved? What is the rate?
The Dairy Sustainability Symposium will be held at the Hilton Chicago in Chicago, Illinois. IDFA has a special room rate of $169 per night.

6. Can I make my hotel reservations now?
Yes, you can make your reservation directly on the hotel website or call the hotel at (312) 922-4400 to reserve your room today. When calling, refer to IDFA's Dairy Sustainability Symposium to receive the special room rate.

7. What is the schedule for the Dairy Sustainability Symposium?
The agenda with program and activities schedule will be made available online. Please note that the program schedule is subject to change.

8. How can I become a speaker at the Dairy Sustainability Symposium?
The Dairy Sustainability Symposium offers attendees access to divergent opinions, new technology and the latest research. If you would like to suggest a topic for the Symposium, please email Paxton Styles, Meetings & Educational Services Coordinator, at pstyles@idfa.org.

9. How do I register for the Dairy Sustainability Symposium?
The fastest and easiest way to register is online. You may also email your registration to registrar@idfa.org, fax it to 202-331-7820 or mail it to: IDFA Registrar, 1250H St, NW, Suite 900, Washington, D.C. 20005.

10. What is the registration fee?
The Dairy Sustainability Symposium registration fee is based on membership. If you are a member the price is $895, and if you are not a member the price is $1095. If you have any questions about membership please email membership@idfa.org.

11. What does my registration fee include?
Your registration fee includes two continental breakfasts, lunch both days, and coffee breaks. You will also receive conference materials with printed PowerPoint presentations from each of the sessions.

12. Will I receive a confirmation of my registration?
Yes, you will receive a confirmation for your registration via email or fax. It will contain detailed information about this year's Dairy Sustainability Symposium.

13. What is the registration cancellation/refund policy?
Full refunds will be granted for written cancellations received up to three weeks before the meeting. Cancellations received one to three weeks before the meeting will be eligible for a 50 percent refund. No registration refunds will be granted after May 23, 2012. All cancellations must be received in writing. Substitutions may be made without penalty.

14. I am a member of the news media, do you have press registration?
Yes. The registration fee is $350.

15. Are there any airfare discounts?
Yes, IDFA has partnered with three different airlines to offer discounts to attendees. We are pleased to announce discounts with American, Delta and United Airlines. Visit the hotel and travel section for more information.

16. What is the dress code?
Business casual attire is highly recommended. Average temperatures in Chicago during May are 69F high, 49F low.

17. My question is not here! Who should I contact?
If you have any further questions about the 2012 Dairy Sustainability Symposium, please contact Patrick Crosson, Meetings Assistant & Registrar at 202-220-3524 or pcrosson@idfa.org.

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How to Register

• Register Online 
• Download the Registration Form
  • Email the form to registrar@idfa.org
  • Fax the form to (202) 331-7820
  • Mail the form and check to IDFA, 1250 H St, NW, Ste. 900, Washington, DC 20005

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