Going Green

Author: Carolyn Koenig
November 2006

Features

Whats good for your meeting is good for the environment—and the ROI

For the past two decades we’ve been faithfully following the environmental 3R’s—reuse, recycle, return—in our personal lives. And, gradually, we’ve begun implementing them in our professional lives as well.

But, today, as we’ve become more educated about the importance of sustainability and the impact of our business on the environment and the communities we meet in, we’re realizing it’s time to investigate the rest of the alphabet.

“There’s been a shift in perception,” says Matt Pizzuti, director of sales and marketing for the Oregon Convention Center (OCC). It’s no longer a question of moving from the fringe to the mainstream, it’s the cutting edge of what meetings need to be and will be in the future, he says.

As requestors, planners pay a critical role in the industry and the green initiatives that will affect its ultimate health. “Planners are the key decision-makers. They exert a substantial influence in the destination chosen and which clauses go into the contracts,” says Shawna McKinley, executive director of the Green Meeting Industry Council (GMIC; greenmeetings.info), based in Portland, Ore. Planners create the demand, she continues, and “what the market demands, suppliers respond to. Planners have such buying power.”

Fortunately, there are tools, programs and venues in the West that can help make our decisions more informed. And the good news is that eco-friendly meetings benefit not only us, our meetings and the environment, but also that 4th, elusive “R”—ROI.

WHAT IS A GREEN MEETING, EXACTLY?
As a baseline, green meetings aren’t limited to environmentally focused organizations. According to Meeting Strategies Worldwide (MSW; meetingstrategiesworldwide.com), a Portland-based conference management, consulting and training firm, green meetings are those that “use practices designed to minimize the environmental and local impact of an event.” These practices can be “as simple as recycling and avoiding disposable items, to things like composting, organic menu options and carbon-offset programs.”

Just as helpful is knowing what green meetings are not. Green meetings don’t have to be 100 percent green, says Nancy J. Wilson, CMP, of MSW. “Our clients are different shades of green. There’s no 100 percent—but we’re making progress.”

“Some people come to us because their entire purpose is environmental sustainability. It’s a highly results-oriented partnership,” says Catherine Wong, vice president of operations for the Vancouver Convention & Exhibition Centre (VCEC; vcec.ca), whose $615-million (CDN) expansion will qualify for LEED certification (Leadership in Energy and Environ-mental Design, the gold standard of the green building industry).* “With other events,” she continues, “they are experimenting with, or introducing, the concept of environmentally green practices. Everyone is at a slightly
different stage.”

Nor do green meetings have to be a hassle. “Our intention is to make it easy,” Wong says. “If [planners] have their own environmental program, we want to tie into that. If not, we encourage them to work with us, and make the process straightforward so they can easily fit into ours. We offer a lot of opportunities to do some of the fundamentals. They don’t have to do anything more than usual, and yet they can have a green meeting.”

Wilson agrees. “It’s the same work, the same site-inspection,” she says. “You’re just looking at it through a different filter.”

Another issue is the misconception that green meetings cost more. But, in fact, there are savings for planners as well as suppliers. Wilson suggests one immediate cost-saver: posting your registration form online instead of printing and mailing it. Another myth-buster is the cost of using china and cutlery versus plastic: According to the Environmental Defense Council, “Using 1,000 disposable plastic teaspoons consumes over 10 times more energy and natural resources than manufacturing one stainless steel teaspoon and washing it 1,000 times.”