Slightly used props? Overstocked furniture? MGM Resorts finds a use for all of it

To trumpet its commitment to sustainability and environmental responsibility, MGM Resorts often speaks with its checkbook. Specifically, and most recently, the company’s $1 million pledge to One Drop, the charity organization initiated by Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberte, which fights poverty by providing easier access to water and raising awareness of water-related crises.

That announcement was made last Thursday (or, World Water Day) at the Bellagio, which is the Las Vegas resort with the strongest water affiliation. The splashy aquatic show at the front of the hotel and the water-staged Cirque show “O” make it so.

But the company also speaks in more muted tones, such as the furniture used in all of its hotel-casinos and even the props used in the staging of its grand events and at the Bellagio Conservatory.

MGM Resorts Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jim Murren explains.

“When I walk around the properties, I look for the recycling bins. What are we doing about reusing materials?” Murren said after one of those giant check presentations, with the $1 million sum scrawled across the giant prop (you are never allowed to actually deposit one of these big checks, I understand). “I was over at Circus Circus last week for an employee function, and I saw brand-new furniture that we had over-bought for the Mandarin (Oriental), and it’s now over at Circus Circus.”

From Mandarin Oriental to Circus Circus. In terms of recycling efforts, MGM Resorts has covered the entire spectrum of its properties.

Murren says the company “doesn’t want to beat people over the head with a 2-by-4,” with its sustainability campaign. But he does note that Aria has the only convention facility in the country that has earned Gold LEED status and that Aria is the largest LEED-certified hotel in the world. Small measures, such as working to install variable-rate pump engines in all of the company’s swimming pools (in place of pumps that run at the same speed, constantly), is a huge energy saver.

Of course, MGM Resorts employs water at many of its hotels, and tourists who happen upon the Bellagio water show and gaze at the vaulting fountains believe that it is a waste of resources. Not so.

“Bellagio’s use of water is peanuts relative to any residential community out here,” Murren said. “It’s a visual effect, and we are proud of it, but we are also proud of how much water we conserve. ... We have water up and down the Strip, but we are watching every drop of every gallon of that water.”

The company is something of a pack rat, too.

“If you go over to our events center, off Russell Road, we have a 100,000-foot warehouse of props we have used, so when we do a great event, we don’t just throw that stuff away,” Murren said. “When you look into the (Bellagio) Conservatory, you’d have to have the most-practiced eye, and a great memory, to see bits and pieces of things we’ve probably used in other displays, but in totally different context.”

The $1 million donation to One Drop is being issued over a 5-year installment plan. And for the week that coincided with World Water Day, ticket proceeds from all Cirque shows in Las Vegas were donated to the organization.

“This just reinforces that we’ve been too perishable, too wasteful, as a country and as a world,” Murren said. “If we can impart some of these business practices, which make sense, we can keep putting that message out there.”

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