Green Guide

Planning Green Meetings and Events: The Event Planner Toolkit

Courtney Brown Recr 498 Planning Green Meetings and Events Beverly Oviedo Spring 2009

Overview A green event is a sustainable event that incorporates environmental considerations to minimize its negative impact on the environment. Green meetings fall into the trend of "going green" and many companies are doing anything they can by having sustainable events. Green meetings value the planner, organization, destination, attendee, and the suppliers. It covers government regulations and uses resources to reduce environmental impacts

Overview Continued By having sustainable meetings and events, negative environmental effects and high costs won't be a problem. CSR, or corporate social responsibility, is making decisions with considerations for the environment, economics, and social equity. While planning a green meeting, there are 10 important steps to be followed. Some of the important tips are to put the event in writing, use paperless technology, have the meeting be a close distance, use items in bulk, eat green, save energy, and spread the word of green events to others. One goal for many organizations is to have their building be LEED certified. LEED is Leadership, energy, and environmental design, it is a Ògreen buildingÓcertification program that minimizes lights, water, and uses low energy and power saving computers. A lot of these buildings also use recycled papers, electronic communication and green energy.

Sustainability Sustainability: A dynamic process which enables all people to realize their potential and to improve their quality of life in ways that simultaneously protect and enhance the Earth’s life support systems Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR): to make decisions with considerations for the environment, economics, and social equity. Sustainable Development: Ensures that all internal and external decision making takes into account the environment, economics, and social aspects.

Sustainability Continued A sustainable business is one that not only produces a product with a cyclical-life cycle, but also is one that conducts every procedure with corporate social responsibility in mind. This would include green meetings and events. With keeping meetings sustainable, you are not only helping out the environment, you are helping the company by saving money as well as keeping the environment in mind. Meetings can be sustainable by using recycled paper products, use bulk products, using electronic ways to communicate, keeping the meeting a short distance to travel to, and save energy, just to name a few. Corporate social responsibility is important to planning green meetings and events because it allows a company to focus on creating, maintaining and innovating meetings and events. By coordinating green meetings and events a company can enhance its green credibility with the public. Green meetings and events should also be a reflection of the company’s day-today operations and product. The development of the building is crucial for a green event as well. The operational practices should be focused on a healthy indoor environment as well as outdoor environment. With having a LEED certified building, utility bills are lower, the environment is healthier for the people, and waste management is more controlled.

Standards What is a Green Meeting?: Environmentally and socially responsible meetings and events.

Business Case for Green Meetings: the economic, environmental, competitive advantage and potential for regulation to influence organizations, clients, or sponsors. Who Benefits from Implementing a Green Meeting?: Everyone and everything! There are economic benefits, environmental benefits, a competitive advantage, and regulations can be covered

BS 8901- Sustainable Event Certification BS 8901 is a sustainable event certification. It is a new British Standard which specifies requirements for a sustainable event management system. The purpose of this standard is to help the events industry conduct business operations in a more sustainable manner. BS 8901 is a management system standard. A management system is defined as a system to establish policy and objectives and to continually achieve those objectives. BS 8901 requires organizations to understand the sustainability issues relevant to their event(s) and to put in place measures to control and minimize these impacts. It requires organizations to aspire to continually improve their sustainability performance in relation to the management of event

Get Started! Set goals and objectives, make a mission statement and set values, chart the course, set the standards, communicate objectives, negotiate green practices, track efforts and measure the results. Convince your clients! Implementing green events can cause them and their organization to be viewed as leaders. Convince your Suppliers! Most green practices are costsaving or cost-neutral for suppliers. I would ask the suppliers to serve items in bulk instead of individual packets, which can save 50 percent or more!

Destination Selection Environmental Aspects of a Destination: Understand the event’s purpose and the attendees’ geographic locations, obtain a list of environmentally responsible organizations, include environmental criteria in the RFP and contracts. Information about Green Suppliers?: Ask the convention and visitors bureau or a destination management company for a list of venues, properties and suppliers that have environmental practices in place I would first make sure the destination was willing to work with me in order to practice an eco-friendly meeting in their city. I would also use the business case to steer any destination that is willing to implement for a meeting.

Food and Beverage Three Green Requests: I would choose to not use plastic water bottles, and I would stick to large water pitchers. I would also choose local food that is in season, and china instead of throw-away plates and utensils. What are some options in choosing food and beverages to make meal functions less harmful to the environment and benefit the community?: In order to help out the community, you can write a clause in the contract with the hotel/company stating that any left over food must be donated to a local food donation outlet. List at least 5 Environmentally Responsible Practices for Food and Beverage: 1) Do not serve plastic water bottles 2) Choose food that is in season 3) Choose seafood from sustainable fisheries 4) Choose food based on the group’s preferences 5) Do not use throw-away plates or utensils

Did You Know? For a 3 day event serving 4,200 attendees, not prefilling water glasses and not using saucers saved 520 gallons of drinking water and 12,400 gallons of dishwater?

Accommodation Selection Hotel Green Requests?: The two most common green requests for a hotel are the linen and towel reuse program, and the in-room energy savings program.

Who from the hotel should be included in green requests?:

Housekeeping, operations, and food and beverage managers should be included from the beginning when requesting green practices

What should you do to ensure green practices are implemented?: To determine whether or not the hotel’s practices and policies are in place, you should conduct a site inspection. It is important to see where the recycling is sorted and stored for pick up. Planners should conduct a back-of-the-house tour to ensure green practices are taken place.

What is a Sustainable Hotel? A sustainable hotel is a hotel that incorporates sustainable thinking in its decision-making at all levels throughout the organization. The hotel needs to raise sustainable awareness to their staff in order to actually practice green motifs. The hotel needs to reduce the use of waste, water use, and energy. They also need to work within their community and practice destination protection.

Sustainable Hotel: Seaport Hotel: The Seaport hotel has its own environmental program dedicated to increasing sustainability and conservation throughout all aspects of the organization. The Seaport hotel also has four Allergy-Friendly rooms where they minimize irritants allowing the rooms to be certified hypoallergenic and friendly to those with respiratory illnesses. It is also a smoke free hotel and they use natural green cleaning products. Seaport hotel also practices sustainability by purchasing food from local farmers. Two of the farms are completely organic. The Seaport hotel is one of the most sustainable hotels in the U.S, hopefully other hotels will catch on and go green as well.

Fun Fact! Green Tip: Instead of harsh chemical sprays, get those windows and mirrors crystal clear with a simple solution of white vinegar, newspaper and a little elbow grease. You'll also save money and the hassle of needing to stock more cleaning supplies.

Green Venue Bringing up green meetings to a venue is the first thing you should to while conversing with the venue. Once the venue has agreed to perform green practices, you should weigh each venue’s environmental policies and procedures along with other determining factors. To verify the green practices are being implemented, you should conduct a site inspection and tour the “back of the house.”

Fun Fact! Green Tip: You can keep your clothes smelling fresher with vodka -- really! Simply spritz your duds with the stuff, then hang to dry in a wellventilated area. (Do a spot-test first to be safe. )Vodka kills odor-causing bacteria, but doesn't leave a scent when dry.

Transportation Educate your attendees: To educate event attendees about transportation, you should alert them about mass transit and carpooling to the event. You can also provide information about local public transit or arrange shuttles for the attendees to and from the event. Carbon offsets relate to meetings?: Carbon Offset is involved with meetings because the transportation people use emits the use of fossil fuels, which cause greenhouse gas emissions. Environmentally friendly options:When hiring a transportation company, you should first ask about their environmental practices. You should include environmental criteria in the RFP and include a clause in the contract that says the company will commit.

Fun Fact! Green Tip: Get on the Bus! Write to your city representatives to request that your community upgrade their diesel buses to fleets of LNG or biodiesel buses. This will reduce the CO2 emissions generated, reduce dependence on imported oil dependency, and in the case of biodiesel engines actually run cleaner and more efficient than petrochemical diesel.

Communication Conference Calls: Conference calls are a great way of communication because you can get your whole team on one line of the phone. There is no form of transportation, no waste, and an easy way to keep a meeting sustainable! What is Green A.V?: Green Audio/Video is when a company uses the most efficient lighting, audio, and video equipment. Electrical equipment is a huge contributor to Global Warming and by using Green AV, it minimizes the use of greenhouse gases.

Generational Considerations for Green Practices Generational Considerations: Different generations view green practices differently because during the years all of the generations have experienced completely different situations. In my generation, (Gen Y), I have experienced different presidents, 9/11, technology such as cell phones, facebook, e-mail, etc. Gen Y is a very open-minded generation. I agree with the statements about my generation because everything is quickly changing. My generation is ready for change and becoming sustainable is a huge part in today’s world.

Energy What is Renewable Energy?: Renewable energy is an electric power generated from a source that is renewable. Renewable energies are natural things such as wind, sunlight, and ocean tides. Venues benefit from using renewable energies because it demonstrates support for reducing negative impacts on the environment.

Green Office 10 Easy Steps to a Greener-Sustainable Office: Office Policy: Establish an environmental office policy Responsible Paper Usage: Avoid printing PDF’s, whenever possible. Break Room: Avoid Disposables; use washable items Purchasing Products: Purchase fairtrade products such as teas and coffees Water Conservation: Don’t let the water run by brushing your teeth or washing dishes. Equipment: Use power strips for ease of turning off multiple machines and appliances Maintenance: Use non-toxic cleaning supplies Waste Management: Dispose of hazardous materials properly and recycle Energy Efficiencies: Use energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs Social: Donate food, used furniture and equipment to non-profit organizations

I think the most important step for being green in an office is responsible paper usage. I know in offices, they have to print out a ton of papers for meetings or just in general. If they keep meetings electronic it will benefit the office from wasting paper and ink and they will also save more money.

Summary Change and evolution are occurring every day in the meetings industry in relation to green practices. Green meeting standards are being created worldwide. The benefit to planning green meetings is that they can save organizations money while reducing their impact on the environment. Quantifying the cost savings will also increase the demand and participation of green meeting practices. This is just the beginning to what will be possible in the future. Green meetings are an easy, cost saving, and environmentally smart thing to do for your company!

References A Meeting Planner’s Toolkit: Beverly Oviedo www.greentips.com Simple Steps to Green Meetings and Events: Amy Spatrisano & Nancy J. Wilson