In This Chapter
Applying environmentally sound business practices to meetings and events
Making your meetings green
Saving business money when making events green
Improving your business reputation by going green
Now that you’ve greened up your business facility, systems, and products, it’s time to carry the healthy theme through to your company events. Green meetings are increasingly popular, and for good reason: the meeting and event industry produces a lot of unnecessary waste and greenhouse gases. Meetings involve expenses for transportation and fuel to attend cross-country events, heating and cooling large spaces for hundreds or thousands of attendees, feeding participants, and dealing with waste—the biggest culprit of all. From name tags to hand-outs to disposable dinnerware and water bottles, crowds of people produce tons of trash. And it all adds up to a lot of energy.
In this chapter, we share some good ideas on how you can green your meetings—and why this is such a good idea. You may be surprised to learn that while you’re saving the planet, you’re saving money, too. By minimizing resources and reducing waste, you’re cutting costs.
According to MeetGreen, a typical five-day event for 2,500 people will use 90,000 bottles, 75,000 paper cups, and 87,500 napkins. That translates into many tons of embodied energy used to create the products, producing tons of greenhouse gases and ending up as tons of waste in the landfills. We can do so much better, and that’s what going green is all about. Although most small businesses won’t be working on events of such large scale, the same practices applied here can be used for smaller events as well.
Co-Op America (now Green America) has been putting on Green Business Conferences for several years. Its 2008 event in Seattle hosted 30,000 attendees yet proved remarkably green. Only 3 percent of the waste from the two-day event went to landfills—that means 97 percent was recycled and composted. You can do this, too! Even if your event is much smaller, you can reduce waste by instituting a recycling program.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced in May 2008 that it would give preference to facilities that minimize waste and conserve resources when selecting sites for its meetings and events. The EPA has partnered with many meeting associations and hotels to make it easier for meeting planners and meeting venues to meet green standards for efficiency.
Many cities and states are initiating similar programs in support of green businesses. For example, in Florida, Governor Charlie Crist has launched a green initiative by declaring that all government meetings must be held in green-certified facilities and meet green standards of efficiency. This kind of policy is moving us in the right direction, and it’s a great example of a nonpartisan cooperative effort to lead the way and show the world how we can make the new green economy and a healthy green environment work.
First on your checklist in creating a green event is to choose a green venue. Choose a site that has been LEED-certified by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) or that meets local green building requirements with various standards of efficiency and low impact. If you have out-of-town guests, choose green-rated hotels or those that at least offer a linen reuse program and bulk dispensers for shampoos and soaps in guest suites. The Green Meeting Industry Council reports that the linen reuse program saves tons of water, energy, oil, and cleaning products while preventing toxic bleach from getting into the environment.
Going Green
LEED certification is provided by the USGBC to help facilities develop more environmentally friendly buildings. While many hotels and other buildings are striving to achieve LEED certification for their facilities, many others are making strides in green innovations without meeting the stringent LEED requirements. Talk with facility managers about their green innovations to find one that applies at least some energy and efficiency measures, even if they are not LEED-certified.
These hotels have made an effort to reduce the environmental impact of meetings and events:
The Green Meeting Industry Council reports that the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn and Spa in Sonoma, California, switched to compact fluorescent light bulbs and saved $61,000 in one year while preventing 300,000 pounds of greenhouse gases from polluting the atmosphere.
The new InterContinental Hotel in San Francisco is working toward achieving LEED certification for its new facility. The newly constructed building is a testament to the possibility of being green while meeting the luxury standard expected by guests willing to pay for five-star accommodations.
InterContinental Hotels are making green an initiative worldwide. In the United States, they’ve replaced incandescent bulbs with more than $1 million worth of compact fluorescents, saving more than $2.28 million worth of electricity annually and preventing more than 90,000 tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the equivalent of taking 17,416 cars off the road.
The Willard InterContinental Hotel in Washington, D.C.—where Abraham Lincoln and both Presidents Roosevelt have stayed—has evolved into an environmentally friendly venue over the years. The International Hotel & Restaurant Association recognized the Willard with its Environmental Award for Hospitality Sustainability. The hotel offers sustainable food, beverages, and supplies and is 100 percent powered by wind energy. They compost organic waste, use nontoxic cleaning products, and save more than 100,000 gallons of water annually through conservation programs.
The newest hotel on the InterContinental block is the Innovation Hotel in Windsor, England, which is a demonstration project of a luxury hotel employing all the green principles possible. The hotel employs solar panels to heat water and wind turbines for electricity, harvests rainwater for irrigation and to flush toilets, has a green roof garden to help insulate, uses recycled materials for windows and furnishings, and donates nonperishable leftovers to charities and food banks.
Kimpton Hotels, a leader in greening its properties, has launched its “Great Meetings, Great Causes,” program to help meeting planners organize green events at its facilities worldwide.
Devil’s Thumb Ranch in Colorado provides an environmentally friendly resort and spa designed with sustainability in mind.
For a more comprehensive listing of green hotels and meeting venues, see Appendix B.
Try to find a meeting venue that recognizes green principles and has made the transition to a more energy-efficient environment. When first contacting a venue, ask if it has green policies. You might use the EPA list provided later in this chapter to develop the questions to ask and the types of innovations you’re looking for. Many new buildings are studying the standards set forth by the USGBC and striving for LEED certification in new construction. Some cities are requiring that new construction meet LEED requirements. Instead of costing millions, as once feared, it’s paying off.
What should you look for in building efficiency? The opportunity to unplug from the power source. Coordinate with the meeting venue to ensure that energy, lights, and air conditioning will be turned off when rooms are not in use. For example, the Seaport Hotel Boston reports saving $100,000 in one year by installing occupancy sensors in its hotel rooms. If no occupancy is detected after 14 minutes, the room air conditioning/heating system goes into sleep mode to ensure comfort and avoids wasting energy when it’s not needed. Some venues are installing room key sensor systems that turn lights and air conditioning on when occupants are in the room and off when they exit.
Request rooms with windows to maximize daylight use. Again, look for places that use automatic sensors to save energy. Use rooms that maximize daylight—natural light saves energy and creates an atmosphere more conducive to sales. The Green Meeting Industry Council says you can even increase sales by up to 40 percent with natural lighting.
Look for a building that off-gases as little volatile organic compounds (VOCs), formaldehyde, and other toxic airborne particles as possible. Exposure to synthetic petrochemicals can have a numbing effect on our senses as well as cause a slight decline in our intelligence quotient over time. Some chemical components of paints, fabrics, adhesives, air fresheners, and cleaners can also trigger asthma attacks or allergic reactions. Choose places furnished with natural materials. Solid-surface floors such as tile or bamboo are preferable to carpet, although some carpet manufacturers create less-toxic flooring materials that are recyclable. Ask if they used no- or low-VOC paints, wall coverings, and furnishings in the interiors.
Nontoxic cleaning products are far less damaging to indoor air quality than traditional cleaning agents, and green laundry products are gentler on fabrics. Cindy DeRocher, manager of The Gardens Hotel in Key West, has worked to make her facility the first green lodging in Key West. She said that asking staff to avoid the use of bleach products in cleaning and laundry was challenging because of the powerful cleaning properties of bleach. Still, her facility uses nontoxic products and energy-efficient laundry machines. They have replaced complimentary soap products with bulk in-room dispensers to reduce waste and cut costs. Ask the facility you’re considering whether they use green cleaning products and practices.
Choose a convenient venue that’s close to attendees to cut down on travel and transportation costs and energy. Make it easy for attendees to walk or carpool to events—you and your guests could save an estimated $10,000 a day in transportation costs and energy, according to Meeting Strategies Worldwide. And eliminating shuttle bus transportation and selecting hotels and meeting facilities within walking distance eliminated $30,000 to $40,000 for one three-day meeting, according to the organization.
The EPA has developed a list of items to consider when searching for a green venue:
Do you have a recycling program? If so, please describe.
Do you have a linen/towel reuse option that is communicated to guests?
Do guests have easy access to public transportation or shuttle services at your facility?
Are lights and air conditioning turned off when rooms are not in use? If so, how do you ensure this?
Do you provide bulk dispensers or reusable containers for beverages, food, and condiments?
Do you provide reusable serving utensils, napkins, and tablecloths when serving food and beverages?
Do you have an energy efficiency program? Please describe.
Do you have a water conservation program? Please describe.
Does your facility provide guests with paperless check-in and check-out?
Does your facility use recycled or recyclable products? Please describe.
Do you source food from local growers or take into account the growing practices of farmers who provide the food? Please describe.
Do you use biobased or biodegradable products, including biobased cafeteriaware? Please describe.
Do you provide training to your employees on these green initiatives? Please describe.
What other environmental initiatives have you undertaken, including any environment-related certifications you possess, EPA voluntary partnerships in which you participate, support of a green suppliers network, or other initiatives?
For more info, go to www.epa.gov/oppt/greenmeetings/pubs/current_init.htm.
Hazard
Be aware that since “green” is the new gold in hotel properties, some facility marketing materials may make claims that don’t add up. Be sure you’re well informed of the sustainability issues that concern you so you can ask the right questions to make sure the property isn’t just claiming to be green.
The EPA is currently developing standards for green meetings, but in the meantime, several organizations and individual meeting planners are available to help you make your events as green as they can be. The Green Meeting Industry Council and Meeting Strategies Worldwide provide ample resources to meeting planners and organizations who wish to learn more about greening their events (see Appendix B).
If finding a green venue seems too difficult for your staff to tackle, several firms specialize in helping businesses and organizations find the perfect venue for events and meetings. Green consultants have recognized an increasing desire among clients for green venues and can offer a great deal of assistance in matching the perfect venue to client needs. If your staff doesn’t have the time or expertise to vet green venues, find a firm that specializes in this area to help make sure you’re locating your event in a genuinely green facility. See Appendix B for a list of firms specializing in placing green festivals and events.
Spitfire Agency is dedicated to supporting businesses in moving toward a healthier global future. Founder Sarah Haynes has told listeners of the “People Speak” radio show that her mission is to have minimum impact on the planet and maximum impact on people. She has made a name for herself as the Queen of Green Meetings, applying Spitfire staff and skills to make music festivals and events as green as possible. She worked with Richard Branson and Daryl Hannah to green the Virgin Festival in 2007, a music festival held in Baltimore, Toronto, Calgary, and Vancouver each year. Biodiesel fuel and solar power–generated electricity and even stationery bikes were hooked up to run compact fluorescent light bulbs. All materials, such as plates and cups, were made from biodegradable materials, which a local service composted with a goal of producing “near zero” waste. Haynes has worked with many events worldwide to help switch to greener systems.
Haynes offers an interesting way to help consumers break their buying habits and reduce their waste: carry around your own trash for a week. Her friend, Julia Butterfly Hill, famous for living in a tree for more than a year in protest of timbering operations, challenged her to do this. Haynes says that carrying her garbage in a backpack really helped her pay attention to selecting items with less packaging and to simply resist acquiring things she didn’t really need.
“The solutions exist—it’s really not that hard,” Haynes said in an interview on “People Speak” in August 2007. “If someone’s committed to [go green], they can. It’s a lot of work and a lot of time, but this is definitely something we can all handle.” Seven Star, Inc. organized the Chicago Green Festival in 2006. Ten tons of waste were recycled, with just 4 percent of the festival garbage going to landfills. One secret to the success of composting and recycling was stationing volunteers and staff at recycling and compost bins to help ensure that garbage was properly disposed of.
These are just a couple examples of large organizations and consultants that have successfully found ways to reduce waste and conserve resources for meetings and events. Regardless of your company’s size, if you learn from their experiences, you can apply the same techniques to your business events.
Learning to make do with less and cutting back on consumption is an important part of going green. All the stuff we move to our landfills is poisoning our air, water, and soil. Choose recycled and recyclable items for your event, such as pens, paper, and awards. Request that recycling and compost bins be placed in visible locations to avoid sending reusable resources to the trash dumpster.
Every meeting planner wants to offer a gift to attendees, but often these gifts are kitschy things that fall by the wayside and into the trash soon after the event. Cut back on the cute gifts and focus more on useful, reusable, eco-friendly items that will have a more positive impact on the planet. Make sure items really are green, not just greenwashed.
Many promotional product companies specialize in eco-friendly gifts, but always make certain the gift meets green standards. Ask about the areas your firm has considered to make your business green: Will gift recipients use the item over the long term? Where does the item come from? How much does transportation cost in bringing it to you? Is it made with recycled materials? Are they nontoxic and biodegradable, recyclable, or reusable? How much waste is in the production process and packing? If the item is imprinted with a company logo and the medium permits, do they use soy- or vegetable-based inks? These are just a few questions to consider when selecting the best eco-friendly gift for your meeting guests.
Here are a few ideas for appropriate gifts whose useful life extends far beyond your event. Send your green message via www.gogreengift.com, the original eco-starter kit. Instead of offering bottles of water or plastic refillable bottles, give your guests stainless steel bottles—they won’t leach anything into the water. Reusable bags will come in handy at the grocery store and help cut down on the plastic we use. Jump drives (loaded with conference handouts and resource materials) will be useful and reusable in the office. Items made with recycled materials trump cheap plastic logo items.
Our eating needs represent a huge contribution to greenhouse gas production and environmental contaminants. Scientists say that raising meat produces more greenhouse gases than our transportation industry. The impact of the chemical industry on agricultural practices results in contaminating our fruits, vegetables, meat, and milk with pesticides, antibiotics, and other synthetic chemicals we wouldn’t otherwise have introduced into our bodies. These chemicals take petroleum and energy to produce and are polluting our air, soil, and water supplies. Choosing to eat without them is a decision that’s gaining a lot of support—organic food is the fastest-growing segment of our food industry today.
You’ll have to weigh the cost-benefit advantages of greening up your meals. Although organic foods typically cost more than conventional, the trade-off of getting clean fruits, vegetables, and meats not contaminated with synthetic petrochemicals and pharmaceuticals and produced with less greenhouse gases represents a value measured by our health rather than our checkbooks. Consider the health and environmental impact of your meals when deciding whether you can afford to choose organic options. You can reduce the cost of organic meats and produce by selecting local growers. Also if you reduce the amount of meat on the menu and replace it with vegetables, you’ll cut down on the cost because meat costs more than produce.
Work with the chef to develop a delicious organic vegetarian meal using fresh local produce. Although vegetarian meal options can sometimes seem boring, such as spaghetti or sauce-less steamed vegetables, there are more creative alternatives. Find a chef who’s willing to create a truly memorable meal with vegetables, grains, and beans. An added bonus: going vegetarian is good for the wallet and the waistline.
Does the hotel or conference facility have an arrangement to send leftover food to a local shelter? Does it compost scraps to help nourish the garden or landscape? Both of these practices can ensure that food is used as sustainably as possible—eat what is edible and feed the rest to the plants that will create the next meal.
You’ve heard reduce, reuse, recycle. It matters. Use reusable plates and silverware instead of disposable.
The Environmental Defense Fund says that using disposable plasticware uses 10 times more energy (in resources and manufacturing) than you’d use with reusable ware, even calculating in the water and energy used to wash it.
A popular new product is compostable plates and flatware made from corn or other starch. These are good because they are made from a renewable resource and are biodegradable. But throw them into the compost bin, not the garbage can, and make sure they make it to a municipal composting site for proper disposal. These types of bioplastics will not break down in a natural environment and need to be sent to an industrial composting facility, not the plastic recycling center. Ask for visible and accessible recycling and composting bins.
Buy in bulk. Ask the hotel to use bulk dispensers for sugar, salt, pepper, cream, and other condiments. The Green Meeting Industry Council says that bulk cream is 62 percent cheaper and sugar costs half as much when dispensed in cream pitchers and sugar bowls instead of individually wrapped packets. Ask for salt and pepper shakers and condiment bottles instead of individual packets, too.
If you do use some plastics and paper, request that recycling bins be located in visible, easy-to-access spots so attendees can properly dispose of them. If you’re using compostable materials, offer a compost bin as well. Most often, recycling bins are blue, composting bins are green, and garbage bins are black. Clearly label each bin, and ensure all attendees understand where to throw their waste. Ask a trained volunteer or employee of the venue to man the waste stations and help educate guests on where to place their waste. This will ensure a successful, zero-waste event.
Please don’t distribute water bottles—give your attendees stainless-steel, refillable bottles or locate water dispensers and fountains conveniently and serve water only by request at meals. Avoid plastics (water bottles, bags, and packaging)—they’re made with nonrenewable resources and create pollution and waste problems. A pile of plastic the size of Texas lays in the Pacific Ocean today, and it’s killing hundreds of thousands of birds, fish, and marine life each year. If we stop using it, they’ll stop making the stuff.
At Greenbuild 2004, the USGBC Conference provided water in bulk containers with compostable cups, saving $25,000 and preventing 48,000 plastic water bottles from hitting the landfills or oceans, where they often end up.
Cindy DeRocher at the Gardens Hotel in Key West says she stopped buying 15 cases of bottled water each week, which in turn had to be trekked 150 miles out of the island chain to a landfill. Instead, she provides guests with complimentary refillable water bottles and locates water dispensers throughout the hotel grounds for guests’ convenience. She’s confident that the move will save her hotel money.
Reducing our paper waste output makes a big dent in cutting back on our carbon footprint. We save trees which help process the CO2 in the air, and we save energy and reduce emissions from the paper production process. Bleaching paper is damaging to waterways that serve as receptacles for pulp mill waste. They become contaminated with dioxin through the process, which is a known carcinogen. So think of ways you can cut back on using paper.
Reach out to your potential conference attendees through e-mail and organizational websites they might visit. Sending an ad online instead of in print is faster and far less expensive, plus it saves paper and the transportation cost of mailing.
Trade paper for electronics. Create a conference website and let potential participants register online without costly and lengthy paper transactions. Keep in touch with registrants using e-mail.
Instead of printing handouts, provide electronic links to useful information. With your jump drive, you have no paper, no bleach, no chlorine, no trees, and much less trash.
Promotional companies sell jump drives, also called flash drives, in bulk lots of 25 to 1,000 or more. The cost can be as low as $4 or $5 each if you’re buying a lot of them, or up to $40 or more if you need a large-capacity drive or you only need a few. You can generally find a flash drive, which will hold plenty of data to replace the paper you won’t be buying or disposing of, for around $7 if you can buy 50 or so. When you compare the costs of electronic versus paper, remember, too, that your attendees will reuse their flash drives for years to come, so consider the item one of your gifts.
Use recyclable name tags. Although they’re made of plastic, you can insert a paper name tag and any other material into the plastic sleeve. When the event is over, attendees can drop the necklaces into recycling bins as they leave, and you can reuse them for your next event. You can also use name tags made of biodegradable plastic. The Sustainable Group (www.sustainablegroup.net) offers compostable badges.
Some green innovations won’t be financially feasible for your company, whereas others will actually reduce the cost of your event. You’ll need to conduct a cost-benefit analysis of various options and then decide which work best for your business and your event.
You may find that venues that have gone the full mile and invested in creating a top-level green building are too costly for your event. Certification is an expensive process and sometimes requires expensive heating and cooling systems or renovations. However, don’t let a venue’s green status keep you from requesting a bid proposal—you might be surprised that even though a facility has made the investment in environmentally friendly heating, air conditioning, and water and waste systems, it is still competitive with conventional arenas. The consumer price may reflect lowered energy expense.
You’ll have to compare prices of conventional meeting spaces and green venues and then decide which meets your priorities and goals. You may not be able to create a completely green event, but if you make some strides in some areas, such as meeting space and waste reduction, you’ll be making steps in the right direction. Next time, you can add in greener dining options or electronic jump drives.
Let your guests and the press know what you’re doing for the planet, and maybe they’ll join in. It feels good to go green.
Finding a green venue for your event will help save energy and emissions.
With proper planning, you can reduce waste from your event by as much as 95 percent or more.
Choosing organic and locally grown food at your event provides a great opportunity to make strides in protecting the planet.
Replacing paper with electronic communication saves paper and waste—a win/win!