Sands ECO360 Green Ambassador: Dana Beatty

Dana Beatty is the executive director of the Floral Department at The Venetian and The Palazzo, overseeing the website, communication services, and the property’s floral design and concepts. By nature, going green is a beneficial route for both the planet and her job. She and her team have been strong supporters of Sands ECO360, the company’s global sustainability program, partnering exclusively with the property’s Sustainability department on many occasions. Beatty also offers clients environmentally-friendly options and constantly seeks ways to make her department more sustainable.

“It’s always a challenge, but that’s what I love,” she said. “Before sustainability become part of our culture, it was already part of mine.”

Through the website, the Floral department is able to update their inventory as often as the floral seasons change. Throughout different seasons, they offer “ECO360 Arrangements,” promoting a line of recycled or repurposed containers. Additional sustainable options include recycled glassware, collapsible vases made of recycled plastic, ideal for pool decks as glassware is not allowed, that come in different colors and varieties.

In 2013, Beatty and her team partnered with the Sustainability department to implement “Fall into Sands ECO360,” celebrating autumn and showcasing the property’s sustainable efforts in a visual display. Between the two departments, there were many ideas exchanged, but Beatty needed to make sure they all translated into art. Representations of the property’s environmentally-friendly initiatives displays were Greener Suites (The Infinity Pond), Sustainable Food and Composting (The Recycled Forest), Alternative Transportation (The 1943 Hudson car centerpiece), Water Conservation (The East Garden Nano-filtration system), and Recycling (The West Bed Chocolate Cosmo Flower).

Visual storytelling drove Beatty and her team to creatively represent the process in the sustainable practices the property does. By repurposing an abandoned, vintage car found in the middle of the desert, Beatty retold the story of the Art Deco era automobile and transformed it into the focus for the property’s alternative transportation program, Club Ride in partnership with the Regional Transportation Commission.

“All the guys looked at me like I was nuts,” she said. “It had no tires, so we went to ‘Al’s Tires’ and told him what we were doing and he donated the tires as close to the age of the vehicle.”

The team covered the whole car in moss and put an assortment of sustainable plants that didn’t really need to be watered including succulents and echeverias. As the car sat there for a while, the team added fall leaves to it, showing a progression into the season.

Beatty said she tries to design props with reuse in mind, adding that reclaimed construction steel helped build a recycled forest in the lobby. The team also portrayed how the property manages food waste by creating oversized apples, pumpkins, and other fruits and vegetables with signage that described the sorting and recycling process to the local pig farms. Water conservation is made possible through the nano-filtration system, which helps provide filtered water for landscaping the Palazzo.

“The nano-filtration system on property is an amazing accomplishment, and that’s a really hard thing to translate. We were able to build a simulated system that could creatively tell the story to our guests,” Beatty said.

The team assembled a large fish tank, made with three different compartments. One compartment had amber-colored water to look like dirty water, using pearls to retain water in a soil mix. A second compartment showed movement in lighter-colored water. The third compartment showed crystal clear water, as it connected the final piece to the system to show the process of reclaimed water.

The partnership between the Floral and Sustainability departments was seamless, as Beatty’s team tries to keep up their sustainable efforts. Every year, The Campanile Tower is wrapped with vinyl during Chinese New Year. During the Year of the Rooster, Beatty found a way to repurpose the vinyl wrap into bags.

“I think the bottom line is keeping fresh in an industry that always changes,” Beatty said. “Even though it’s part of sustainability, it’s still being creative. You go out and see what people are doing to make changes in the world and it’s creative. And that’s what I do. Yes, I design flowers, but I also design property décor and whenever I can incorporate any sustainable practice, I absolutely do.”