Summertime...and The Livin' Is Easy

The long, hot days of summer are a perfect time to relax and enjoy live music in a beautiful outdoor setting! And that is exactly what I did this weekend. Even while relaxing I had one eye on the environmental practices taking place at the festival. I just can’t help myself, I truly am a MeetGreen Martyr.

The good news is, Pacific Northwest festivals and events are really going green this summer! Hopefully, you are seeing this as well in your area. If you are organizing an event here are the….

Top Ten Things You Can Do

1. Talk to your waste/recycling hauler early in the planning process to develop a recycling program
2. Hire/appoint a recycling coordinator
3. Purchase green power for the stage and lighting
4. Use biodiesel to power generators
5. Ask food vendors to serve local, sustainable food
6. Do not allow vendors or the venue to serve food in Styrofoam and non-recyclable plastics
7. Provide incentives for the audience to use mass transit
8. Purchase carbon offsets to mitigate the travel by artists
9. Develop talking points for the artists to discuss what is being done to green the event
10. Get started. Choosing even one idea from this list will have a huge impact. Measure what you have done and build on it next year.

Thanks to Stages Northwest for this list. They have additional resources available at
http://www.stagesnorthwest.com/greenresources.html

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.

Meeting Industry Embraces Earth Day

WOW, what a week! The meeting and events industry really went wild with information and resources about environmentally responsible meetings. Industry publications (both in print and online) had loads of coverage. And the news media followed suit with articles and interviews specifically on green meetings and events. Here it is the end of the week, and I am still digesting all of the reports.

In the upcoming week, I will be synthesizing this wealth of information (so you don’t have to) and posting it on my blog. Stay tuned!

First up--I want to congratulate ARAMARK for this week’s announcement…

Partnership to Promote Shift to Sustainable Seafood Announced. Industry leader commits to completing transition within 10 years.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium and ARAMARK have entered into a partnership under which ARAMARK commits to new practices that will guide its purchases of sustainable seafood for all operations across the US. ARAMARK is beginning immediately to shift its seafood purchases toward sustainable sources. The company will complete the transition by 2018.

ARAMARK’s US operations alone employ 180,000 people and serve tens of millions of consumers at businesses, universities, schools, sports and entertainment facilities, parks and other locations. “Being good environmental stewards is important to our employees, our customers and the communities in which we live and work,” said Robert Dennill, ARAMARK’s associate vice president for corporate social responsibility. “The expertise and knowledge we are able to gain from the Monterey Bay Aquarium will guide business practices and influence consumer behaviors, helping strengthen our commitment to the environment.”

As you know, ARAMARK is the exclusive caterer for many of the facilities used for meetings and events. Speaking for meeting planners around the country, “We applaud you!”

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.

New! Free! Green Meeting Resources!

New and free--two of my favorite words! Here are three resources I recently found during my research:

Check out the MPI Canadian Chapter’s “Vertigo, Plan to Meet Green E-Handbook” It has several sections: The Top Ten (Plus 1!) Things You Can Do to Green Your Event, Planning a Green Meeting checklists, resources, policy statements, and case studies
http://www.mpiweb.org/cms/MPIweb/mpicontent.aspx?id=159

Don’t stop there…

PCMA also has an online Green Meetings resource
http://www.pcma.org/x80.xml

Take a look at this online Green Meeting Section on MeetingsNet.com
http://meetingsnet.com/green_meetings/