Convention Centers Prove Green is the New Black

Finally, proof from convention centers that green meetings are also an economic advantage...

The Oregon Convention Center reports that its recycling and other eco-minded practices will pay a $62.3 million dividend to the local economy. The nearly 30 events planned through 2010 will pay more than $4 million to use the convention center. Thanks to the magic of economic multipliers, visitors will spend enough on shopping, dining and lodging to send a $63.2 million wave of activity through the economy. (source: Portland Business Journal)

The San Diego Convention Center impressed me during a recent site inspection. From the General Manager to the Operations team, they are “walking the talk” and continuously looking for ways to improve their environmental performance. The energy efficiency systems now in place save money and the planet—and they have the measurements to prove it! This website talks about their policies as well as providing a downloadable fact sheet. http://www.sdccc.org/meetingplanners/greenmeetings.cfm

The Vancouver Convention and Exhibition Centre, which has made environmental sustainability a priority for more than 20 years, is reconfirming their commitment and tripling its capacity to make it one of the greenest convention center’s in the world. Take a look http://www.vcec.ca/ I can personally attest to this. Way back in 1998 during a site inspection for a technology conference, they proudly offered me their environmental policies without being asked!

Sustainable for business…sustainable for the environment! Let’s hear from others...

Toot Your Own Horn

You’ve done the hard work--set up minimum guidelines for your meetings, put green meeting practices in place, measured the outcomes and took a huge step towards saving our planet. Now it’s time for a pat on the back and recognition for making a difference. If you are like most meeting planners, recognition doesn’t come along very often. So here’s your chance to share what you have accomplished!

PCMA has just announced an “Environmental Leadership” Award with the following criteria.

PCMA presents this award to an individual or organization who best implements their policies of environmental sustainability. An organization is defined as any company that serves the meetings and convention community, as well as any non-profit association or affiliated chapter. The award recipient will be involved in demonstrating environmental leadership by executing an "environmentally friendly" meeting/event or have implemented a "environmentally friendly" business practices into their workplace. This recipient has established and implemented detailed environmental policies and a strategy to execute them.

Here’s the link with all the details

http://www.pcma.org/x2714.xml#Green

See you on the red carpet!

The Big Apple Says "Serve Apples"

The New York State Department of Health has developed a general set of guidelines for healthy meetings. Many of the healthy meeting guidelines are also green meeting guidelines (imagine that!) Here are some of the recommendations for planners:

- Serve local fruits and vegetables whenever possible.
- Serve fruit juice or unsweetened iced tea instead of soft drinks.
- Present a vegetarian option at all meals.
- Feature soups and sauces made from a base of vegetables.
- Provide space on the registration forms where attendees can indicate dietary restrictions.
- Place pitchers of water in meeting rooms.

Healthy on so many levels!

Important Update: Green Meeting Standards

I just received this email from Pat A. Picariello, Director, Developmental Operations, ASTM International on the standards development and wanted to pass it along…

“I wanted to give you all a brief update on the current state of the standards development activity organized last February for green meetings and events. On June 10, a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) was formally signed between ASTM International (ASTM) and the Convention Industry Council’s APEX activity. The MOU details the collaboration between our two organizations from a standards development process perspective; in summary, core standards for green meetings and events will be initially developed by the APEX initiative, and then submitted to ASTM’s sustainability activity for refinement and approval. Note that more detailed press releases on this topic will be distributed from ASTM and the CIC in the near future – as you represent those stakeholders who have expressed direct interest in participating in this process, I wanted you to receive advance notice.”

Amy Spatrisano, APEX Green Meeting Task Force Chair, adds that subcommittees are now being formed and if you’d like to be part of this industry setting initiative you should contact Tori Frazier at TFrazier@conceptsworldwide.com. Let Tori know which of the following subcommittee you want to participate in: destination, accommodation, meeting venue, food/beverage, exhibits, transportation, communication, onsite office, AV/production.

To Teach Is To Learn

Having recently co-presented our "Simple Steps to Green Meetings" Seminar in Washington DC, I am reminded how much I too learn from each seminar. From San Francisco to Washington DC, the professionals who gather to learn more about green meetings bring a wealth of knowledge and creative ideas with them. I wanted to share some tips, tricks, and information that I have learned from students.

-Ask the hotel if they use biodiesel in their airport shuttles.
-Adjust your coffee orders if guests are bringing their own coffee mugs as personal mugs are usually bigger than the china cups found at the event.
-One planner’s organization did a carbon footprint study and found the US Postal Service has the lowest carbon footprint of all shipping services for their needs.
-Use a logo lapel pin to put a paper badge on instead of a plastic badge holder. The paper badge will last the duration of the conference and guests can reuse or collect the pins.
-If guests must rent cars, supply them with rental companies that have hybrids in their fleets. Note: Advantage Rent A Car just reported it will become the first major American rental company to have a 100 percent "green" fleet of cars within the next 24 months.

Thanks to all for your great ideas!

I Want More!

More discussions with other green meeting planners…
More help finding resources…
More best practices…
More information on current trends in one place…
More ideas!

We are all like sponges, soaking up the information and looking for more! So we launched the MeetGreen Forum and invited our colleagues and folks who have attended our seminars/webinars to join. And they did! We are having lively discussions, sharing information, and asking questions.

We also want to invite the blog readers to join the fun. The link below will give you easy directions.

http://www.meetingstrategiesworldwide.com/resources/forum/

Pop on the forum, ask a question, answer a question, share a resource.

Because as Margaret Mead said, “A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”

Choosing a Carbon Offset Provider

The third post in the carbon series deals with choosing a carbon offset provider. In today’s climate of unregulated providers, this can be a “buyer beware” situation.

Which offset provider do I pick?

There are many organizations that are able to provide carbon offsets, and many more that are emerging daily as the ‘carbon market’ grows. Because each program is different it is critically important that meeting and event planners make informed decisions when selecting their offset provider.

Key questions to ask your prospective offset provider include:

1. Do they provide offsets for meetings and events? Choose a provider that has experience with events. Ask them for references of planners you can contact.

2. How do they calculate event emissions? Do the calculations include transportation, buildings and/or manufactured products? Some offsetters will only calculate emissions for air, however others can also account for emissions from ground transportation, food production, waste hauling and building operations. Also, ask providers about any assumptions they make when calculating emissions. Some calculations are based on national or state averages, others on actual emissions by your vendors. Try to be as accurate as possible.

3. Do they only calculate emissions associated with climate change? Or do they include emissions that affect public health? Most offset providers will only calculate greenhouse gas emissions such as carbon dioxide. Others may also calculate sulfur dioxide or particulates which are believed to impact human health locally.

4. What type of event reports are they able to produce? Negotiate what kind of data you want your offsetter to provide. Common measurables we ask for include a breakdown of emissions volume by type, estimated fuel use, and total miles traveled.

5. What percentage of offset funds are retained for administration? This question is critical. Our research shows fees my vary from 3% to 50% of the offset cost, with the average lying close to 20%.

6. Is the offset provider a broker? Some offsetters manage their own projects, others broker or sell the projects of others. Using a broker has the benefit of accessing a diversity offset projects that meet your needs, however can mean you pay higher fees than dealing with the project provider directly.

7. Is the organization a registered charity and able to provide audited financial statements? For some of your attendees and sponsors the ability to provide a taxable benefit may be important. If not, you might also consider private offset providers.

8. Are you certified? Certification for offset providers is only just emerging. The two most common are the Gold Standard and the Voluntary Carbon Standard. Not many offsetters are certified at present, but ask if your provider is working toward certification or has undertaken any verification of their projects.

Our organization has struggled with making the right decision for both ourselves and our clients. We have recently undertaken a vetting process of over 25 offset providers and developed a spreadsheet to help. It is now available in Meeting Strategies Worldwide’s MeetGreen® Toolbox along with a Primer on Carbon Offset Certification. The Toolbox is available on www.meetgreen.com.


My thanks to Shawna McKinley for the Carbon Offset Primer which served as the basis for this series.

What Size Are My Shoes?

Welcome to the first in a series about carbon emissions as they relate to conferences and events. Let’s start with the basics...

What is carbon?
Carbon is a basic building block for life. It is present in all living things. In its elemental form we know it best as coal, oil and natural gas which is a source of energy for many of our activities on the planet.

What we tend to be most concerned with when it comes to meetings and events is our ‘carbon footprint’, which we often use to describe the total amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other greenhouse gases emitted over the full life cycle of a product or service. In addition to emissions output our carbon footprint may also include raw materials, or inputs.

What is your carbon footprint?
Just for fun you might enjoy seeing what your personal carbon footprint is. Follow the links to the Earth Day Network calculator www.myfootprint.org and Climate Trust’s www.carboncounter.org.

What is the ‘carbon footprint’ of a conference?
The “carbon connection” with meetings and events tends to be three-fold, associated with:
• Transportation: the gasoline and kerosene that fuels buses, taxis, shuttles, freight haulers and aircraft.
• Buildings: fuel that lights, heats and cools the hotels and venues we occupy.
• Manufactured products (purchasing): oil and other fossil fuels that may power factories that produce goods we need as well as the materials that go into the production of food, paper, plastics, fabrics and other products that we give away at meetings.

Climate Trust has a basic carbon calculator for events as well http://www.carboncounter.org/business/offsets-for-events.aspx

Next post I will talk about how to address your conference’s carbon footprint.

BYOB

One of the newest green meeting practices is asking participants to bring their own conference bag instead of the host organization supplying one. It makes sense, we all have so many. Before you say your participants would find this “tacky” or “cheap”, hear me out.

Because, what is actually happening is participants are showing up with:

-Bags from earlier conferences,
-Bags from organizations they belong to in their personal lives,
-Bags they have imprinted with personal messages such as “Ask me about…”,
-Bags from their favorite vacation spot,

And it has become a whole social networking game that really has participants enrolled. I have heard reports the coolest bags are those from the very first conferences held by the organization and those who carry them are very highly regarded. Also prestigious are bags from unique destinations and/or made by indigenous people.

What began as a way to save the environment and money has the unanticipated consequence of a new conversation starter! Who would have guessed?

Give Man a Fish and He Will Sell You a Chilean Sea Bass

It’s time for another “campfire” story to share a funny experience in the world of green meetings.

I was meeting with the Chef in a New York City hotel to plan menus for a conference of 400 investment professionals. Reading through the options, I saw that Chilean Seabass was featured on the menu. From my trusty Seafood Watch guide, I know that Chilean Seabass is one to avoid (They are a slowgrowing fish that is prone to overfishing and have become so rare that 50% are caught illegally).

Concerned about this, I say to the Chef, “I see from your banquet menu that you offer Chilean Seabass—one species that should be avoided especially when serving large numbers.”

He smiled slyly, looked around to make sure no one was there, and whispered to me, “Don’t worry, miss, it isn’t actually Chilean Seabass,”

Taken completely by surprise, I didn’t know what to say next. Should I be happy that he was lying to clients and not really serving the endangered Seabass? Or upset that he publicizes and charges for it while using a different fish? Was this “our little secret”?

Anyway you slice it, too slippery for me. Guess I’ll order the chicken. Wait, is it really chicken?

News about Green Meeting Standards

A quick update about the development of green meeting standards straight from Amy Spatrisano, CMP, APEX Green Meeting Panel Chair:

“Good news: The meeting industry standard setting body – APEX (https://www.conventionindustry.org/apex/about.htm)
is collaborating with the US Environmental Protection Agency’s standard setting organization ASTM to develop the standards.

This collaboration between government and our industry is a fairly new concept --at least in my limited experience. So, we’ve been working out all the logistics of how the process will work and who will take the lead. ASTM didn’t even know we were an industry until last year. I think they’re still trying to figure out who we are and exactly what we do. They are a great organization and have been developing standards for decades. It’s just--you know--we’re not your average industry. We interface with so many other industries to produce meetings and events. It can be confusing to those outside the industry.

The response from industry professionals wanting to participate in this process has been phenomenal which a good thing for developing standards the majority will embrace. The standards will be created by a volunteer, consensus-based process. This means you, your friends and your colleagues can weigh in on them. You’ll be given lots of opportunities to do this online, in select city venues and as a part of industry meetings. Look for news in mid-June about the next steps and how you can
participate.

I think this is an amazing opportunity for all of us to be a part of a legacy for our industry and hope you might too."

Here, here!

Because Sometimes You Just Can’t Help It

We try hard to be “paperless” in our planning practices, but there are some times in meetings when you still need to use paper. So the goal becomes, to minimize its use, choose the right product and then reuse/recycle it properly.

When choosing a paper, there are some terms to look for and be familiar with:

Post Consumer: Post-consumer paper is produced using paper that has already been a product (and probably put out at your curb). It is different from pre-consumer waste, which is the re-introduction of manufacturing scrap into the production process.

Recycled: A new product that has been made from re-processed materials. Recycled products can be made from post-consumer or pre-consumer waste.

Recyclable: A product that can be re-processed where facilities exist.

FSC or SFI-certified: Forest Stewardship Council or Sustainable Forestry Initiative-certified. These schemes identify and verify environmentally responsible papers.

Tree Free: Refers to paper that does not use tree fiber, but other kinds of fiber (i.e. hemp, sugar cane).

PCF: Process Chlorine Free: This most commonly means that the paper was produced without chlorine.

Changing from virgin paper to 100% post-consumer paper makes a huge difference. But don’t believe me…use this fun calculator to see the amount of trees and energy you can save by switching.

http://neenahpaper.com/environmentsavings

Don't Leave Home Without It

Your water bottle and coffee mug that is! During the registration process, we now ask conference participants bring their own. In recent months, I have heard about a new practice called, BYOB, or bring your own (conference) bag. It is being instituted with great success as well. Anything we can do to minimize our impact while traveling is critically important. To that point, EPA statistics show:

The average conference participant (at a three day conference):
Produces 61 lbs of solid waste
Uses 846 gallons of water

The same person at home (for three days):
Produces 13.5 lbs of solid waste
Uses 258 gallons of water

Road Warrior, Doug Kennedy, shares some great tips about how hotel guests can minimize their environmental impact.

http://www.hotel-online.com/News/PR2008_1st/Mar08_GreenTraveler.html

Every Day is Earth Day

"A hundred years after we are gone and forgotten, those who have never heard of us will be living with what we have done."

Oliver Wendell Holmes

What is in a Name?

It is less than one week until Earth Day and everyone is talking about the environment, especially the meeting industry. It is hard to keep up! We have always had our own special language and feel comfortable talking about hollow squares, rack rates, attrition, banquet event orders and the alphabet soup of PCMA, CIC, ASAE, IACC, SGMP, etc.

Now words like “corporate responsibility”, "sustainable foods” and “carbon offsets” are being added to our meeting planning vocabulary at a fairly rapid rate. Yikes!

In response, we have just added a glossary to our website as a free resource.
http://www.meetingstrategiesworldwide.com/resources/glossary
We will continuously update the glossary as new words appear in the world of green meetings. Let us know if you have one to add as well.

Are green meetings just a trend?

No way! Will the green meeting practices continue? Absolutely!

In the “State of Green Business 2008” report, Joel Makower states, “Green business has shifted from a movement to a market. But there is much, much more to do.” Joel’s report covers many areas our industry touches such as transportation, energy efficiency, office space, paper use and recycling. It also provides valuable resources and links. I highly recommend taking a look. http://www.stateofgreenbusiness.com/

The world media is devoting attention to environmental issues and climate change. Even magazines such as Sports Illustrated and Vanity Fair had issues devoted to green in 2007. The meeting and event industry is no different. Green meetings were featured 42 times in meeting industry trade publications last year. There is a solid buzz that is not slowing down.

While the media hype surrounding green may fade in time, the solid practices being put into place won’t. Planners have found a new way to cut costs, provide a competitive advantage and increase delegate satisfaction. The economic savings alone will ensure we don’t return to past practices.

The State of Green Meetings 2008

In a 2006, 3.7% of meeting planners were planning green meetings
In a 2008, 42% of association meeting planners are planning green meetings

Wow, what a change! That pretty well sums up what is happening with the green meetings and events industry. What was once considered fringe behavior is now quickly becoming mainstream practice. Planners, hotels, caterers, transportation companies, visitors bureaus and exhibit decorators are all taking a look at their practices and working towards being more environmentally responsible.

All of these organizations are finding that green meetings provide:
-Reduced environmental impact
-Cost savings
-Promotional benefits
-Networking advantages
-Value-added services
-Competitive advantages
-Delegate and employee satisfaction
-Risk reduction

The 2008 Green Meeting Industry Council Conference http://www.greenmeetings.info/ is promising record attendance with delegates coming from Japan, Netherlands, Sweden, UK, Canada and the US. This is another indicator of how large the hunger for information and networking with others in this industry is right now.

I look forward to using this blog to share more about the business case, trends, ideas, resources and actual case studies of green meetings practices. Stay tuned…