Event Calendar
Issue No. 23 - June/Nuly 2005
Greening your meetings and events
by Mr Graham Teague
Meetings, conferences, exhibitions and their associated social events, while providing a significant contribution to our local economy, often have a less than favourable reputation in the environmental stakes.
Everyone involved in these events, either as managers or suppliers, has an opportunity to contribute positively to the health and well-being of our environment.
The Adelaide City Council’s Green City program, part of the Capital City Project, aims to align Adelaide's existing clean and green reputation with actions supporting sustainability to brand Adelaide as an internationally acclaimed green city - recognised for its environmental and sustainability initiatives.
It isn’t difficult to get behind such a program by implementing your own ‘green’ policies and practices and, in doing so, showcase your organisation, Adelaide and South Australia as environmental leaders.
Policy benefits
Apart from the obvious and immediate benefits to the environment of a ‘green meetings and events’ policy, there are significant benefits to organisations that choose to implement such a policy.
The Commonwealth Department for Environment and Heritage, in its document The State of Sustainability Reporting in Australia (2004), notes that the benefits of triple bottom line reporting (finance, environment and social) include:
- enhanced reputation
- benchmarked performance
- improved operations and management
- improved risk management
- increased confidence from investor, insurers and financial organisations
- Improved communication with stakeholders.
Ideas for greening your meetings and events
The following ideas represent a few thought starters for environmentally responsible event management.
General event practices
Survey suppliers to discover the environmental programs/services ...
