The cup runneth over. Not since GMICs Sustainable Events conference has so much high quality, relevant educational content been available to the events professional. The Professional Conference Managers Association (PCMA) has worked hard to feature relevant and timely sessions to help planners understand sustainability as smart business.

Education Needed
Loved and respected educator and expert Sue Tinnish quoted a recent survey which revealed that 4 in 10 planners are unfamiliar with the topic of sustainability. If the industry is to stay viable and if planners and suppliers are to meet business objectives, professional education is going to be the key. PCMA sessions included topics on writing policy (MeetGreen’s Amy Spatrisano), marketing and communication (the aforementioned Sue Tinnish) and engaging stakeholders (Wonderful Copenhagen’s Steen Jakobsen and I), among others all offered example and ‘get started’ tips as well as deeper thinking on more advanced application of sustainable event management.

The strong turnout (4000 attendees) at Convening Leaders has much to do with the quality of the educational content. PCMA, like Green Meeting Industry Council (GMIC), are important partners in the transition to creating a sustainable meetings industry. Smarter, more profitable, more innovative, more effective meetings require different thinking, concrete examples and a sharing of best practices. Industry events like these may represent the best method to improve skills and gain access to education and collaborations.

Partners are more than providers of services. Partners share in our concerns and our successes. They understand out needs and feel compelled to support us. Partners are integral to our success. In providing great, timely, practical educational content, PCMA earns the ‘partner’ title.

Each year, MCI offices vie for the MCI Leadership in CSR trophy (made by hand of recycled glass, of course) presented each year during the annual business meeting.

The award represents not only a great deal of hard work and inspiration from the winning office but also provides a forum to advance still further our commitment to better business and better communities.

To meet minimum criteria, each applicant must provide not only evidence of office participation in monthly measurements of energy use and staff travel, but must also provide information about how they support a culture of sustainability within the office and in support of the local community.

This year, 2011, the MCI Leadership in CSR award panel of judges were faced with the daunting challenge of reviewing the largest number of award submissions to date, each of them meeting the criteria outlined in the award application. After objective and careful review of all the applications, one office stood out as clear winner: MCI Berlin, and the CSR team led by Matthias Kuehne!

We salute all the applicants for the inspiration and positive example they provide and we give a happy round of much deserved applause to Team Berlin.

Congratulations!

How to integrate a social responsibility project in a wealthy community? As we learned with our 2010 event in Istanbul, partner with local leaders to increase the possibility of finding a great NGO. Collaborate with the NGO to understand their needs. Educate, then activate, the participants. Track and communicate learnings and successes.

Check out this sideshow which describes our effort to support Switzerlands Little Dreams Foundation and their No Difference project

May your own end of year efforts to give back to industry or community be well received and a springboard to a prosperous 2012! And please return to provide us your examples/photos/inspiring ideas to share for better events and a better 2012!

We draw attention to the collaboration underway in Denmark. In the lead up to the European Union presidency which will rotate to Denmark in January, 2012, the team that brought you the Copenhagen Sustainable Meetings Protocol comes Sustainable Events Denmark, a nationwide effort to elevate sustainability as a standard practice throughout the Danish meetings industry as a way to showcase Danish leadership, innovation and design.

Andreas Clausen Boor, Head of Logistics for Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Denmark, has been both the spark and, as the client representative, the patron of the initiative. Hear him explain it in his own terms in this great video.

Check out the new industry resource, the Sustainable Events Denmark portal, and share your suggestions, impressions and testimonials: here

Concerns about the soap recycling initiative:

1.  Why so much wasted soap?  This seems a design issue.  Hotels are under the impression that people need more soap than they apparently do. Scandic Hotels and many other properties who meet criteria for eco-certifications, have long avoided such waste though the use of refillable containers.

2.   Access to clean water and toilets  The communication here, for all the life-saving it references, seems to overlook the big part of the crisis that is the lack of access to clean water and sanitation (toilets and water treatment).  How do we join up a soap initiative with an access-to-clean-water-and-toilets initiative so that boxes of soap don’t arrive  independent of the water needed to make them effective?

3.  Donations of such products are discouraged by charity experts.  For every free bar of soap that arrives, the entrepreneurial incentive to open a shop or create a small business to create and distribute soap just got smaller.  Is it not better to build capacity in these communities than create a culture of dependence?

4.  Local donations downplayed?  Although a number of US-based charities receive soap, the front page of the Clean the World website has a focus on faces from impoverished nations.  Maybe it’s just a design choice, and is related to their brand and communication position that soap is needed to save lives but it seems odd not to position this as a local need, as well.

The point, here, isn’t to decry any organization as misguided, but to ask something more of our industry.  We’re better than this.  We can design our businesses to eliminate such waste and allocate the resulting savings in ways that truly build capacity and create meaningful change for communities in need.

There’s a parallel, here, to recent thinking on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Reporting.  In her just published article, Elaine Cohen recaps the recent Redefining Value: Integrated Reporting and Measuring Sustainability Conference which shares, among many great facts and figures, some insights for making sustainability reporting common practice.

Some argue that only government imposed regulation (‘eat it or else’) can inspire organizations to consistently share performance data publicly.  Others want markets to lead this initiative, leaving individual business to define what and how they’ll report (‘only take what you want’).  Which method produces a healthier business?

Like a kid who squirms and resists eating broccoli the first time, only to later discover that they like it, corporations who produce CSR reports for the first time experience a feeling of discovery, saying the process was beneficial to their business.    Like eating your vegetables, the benefits of integrated sustainability reporting are real…and important.. and worth pursuing.

Is it unreasonable, then, that meeting planners might also experience a similar sense of enlightened discovery in pursuing sustainable event reporting? And experience the improved stakeholder trust and improvement in business practice which inevitably follows thoughtful reporting?

Can this practice fuel a movement to integrate sustainability into the very design of the event itself (rather than having sustainability be seen as a complicated afterthought)? And bring needed improvements to an industry which struggles with uniform application of sustainable business practice?

Will the meetings industry eat its vegetables?

CEI Asia Jan 11 Predictions.pdf

Here are my comments:

It has been a solid year for sustainability in the meetings industry and I am impressed by many of the actions taken by organisations around the world. Looking across the Green Meetings Industry Council (GMIC) membership, I have seen a growing number of businesses that have elevated sustainability to a strategic management priority and have taken actions to embed CSR into day-to-day practices.

However, while 2010 was a good year we must ask whether ‘good’ is good enough? Global resource issues, destruction of nature and unhealthy practices continue. Oil prices will go up and the unequal distribution of wealth and opportunity is only worsening. The meetings and events industry is not doing enough and together we need to step up, scale up and speed up. Sustainability is a key management competence. It is good for profit, builds trust and gives competitive advantage.

Maybe such parallels are evident only for those whose wedding anniversary happens the same week as the event in question, but we persist with the analogy. In the points that follow, we explore some traditional wisdom and some of what these seemingly disparate topics have in common (and we salute the significant others who cope with such persistence)

Success possible only with commitment of the principles involved. CSR, or sustainable business, requires business leaders to believe enough in the concept to commit to the time and resources necessary to allow the program to flourish and become integrated with the fundamental operation of the business.  A ‘toes in the water’ approach delays the success that awaits.

It takes work. It’s been said that nothing worthwhile is ever easy.  Relationships and sustainable business plans can be said to be alike in this way.  They represent new thinking and change to the familiar.  They require us to adjust–maybe even give up– long-held paradigms.  They each require us to admit our failings and to be open to help. A pursuit of a sustainable business plan brings confusion and difficulty.  Seek counseling before ditching a fledgling plan. The payoff is worth the investment.

Collaboration required. Similar to the above, but different, sustainable business requires that new networks be established.  Sometimes our old providers–the unkempt roommate or long time supplier–can adjust and make the cut to the new way of doing business, but sustainability, like new and important relationships, may require us to shrug off the weight that’s holding us back from the bright future of innovation and new discovery.

Provides a better filter for decisions “Does this sustainability plan make my asset look fat?” Rather, ‘does this decision align with our vision for a sustainable future?’ Sustainable business plans, like our significant others, equip us with important perspective for making decisions which build better business (or relationships). No fair asking loaded questions, though.

Transparency Matters.  Honest, forthcoming communication with stakeholders is the best policy. Share your goals and your plan to attain them.  Admit your shortcomings and any risks with the plan.  Be plain spoken and confident in the success of your venture. Share the results and seek feedback to speed performance improvement.

it’s important to take a moment to thank the people who are helping to make all that happen.  A thoughtful card, unexpected cookies.. an office party.. or, would it kill ya to clean the toilet once in a while? None costly, all appreciated and an important part of building a culture of trust and respect and esprit de corps.

So.. it’s not so odd, really, right?  A commitment to the development of a sustainable business plan brings real reward, but finding your way there can be a challenge. Thanks for making the leap.

What parallels to real life and relationships have surfaced with the creation of  your sustainability plan?

The meetings industry, some feel, is not yet ready to address social responsibility. We’re asking too much for businesses, many of whom are only now beginning to integrate ‘green’ practices, to try to tackle issues of social responsibility. Really? Certainly we can ask for fair wages, equality and diversity as we ask for recycling, carbon measurement and the elimination of bottled water? 600,000 people die in China each year as a result of overwork. Child slavery flourishes and women continue to be paid less than men for the same position. Green is good, but the real rewards will come for the meetings industry and for local communities when we find a way to better integrate social responsibility into the organization of meetings and events—but soon and on a global scale.

Recently, Shawna McKinley posed an important question to members of The Green Meetings Industry Council asking, in essence, “ What does Social Responsibility mean for the meetings industry and how will we measure it?”.  What follows is a re-working of my responses to that lively conversation.

What does social responsibility mean for the meetings industry? With such great complexity, and the variance in regional norms, finding a single checklist of recommended steps may result in something too generic to be meaningful.

An important step is for businesses to define ‘social responsibility’ for their organization, perhaps using the new ISO 26000 as a guide.  Note that socially responsible initiatives should focus on long term benefits, rather than feel good one-time events. In addition, organizations should seek to support those projects or NGOs which align with the core values of the event or company.

But how to find suitable projects and organizations with which to align?

Some solutions might be found on the new and exciting trend in the creation of online sites which match charities with businesses or individuals  An example is LeapAnywhere Act Bolder provides opportunities for organizations to define causes and invite others around the world to join them (Note that the ‘challenges’ can be pretty basic).  Yet another is Social Vibe.  For talented individuals, Catchafire.  See these suggestions for good charities to support.  Lastly, Good Intentions are not Enough is a great site and can help organizations avoid common pitfalls of social responsibility initiatives.

Social media can facilitate some of the needed solutions but there’s no replacement for business leaders seeing the gaps in their sustainability plans and innovating solutions to provide a response. What actions are being taken in your company?

In addition to your thoughts and feedback, please share sites and solutions and ideas which can be helpful to accelerate action in support of socially responsible initiatives. Check out the responses to Shawna’s initial question by joining the Green Meetings Industry Council group on the Linkedin site. Lots more good topics there, too.

There’s something missing from the conversation, however. These observations of BP (and the many companies who are very glad they are not BP), don’t seem to make the link between company displays of sustainability and the utter lack of a corporate culture of sustainability in so many companies.  No community investment, eco-certification or annual report can replace a culture of sustainability which would have prevented the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the first place.

The recent intense focus on ‘the business case for sustainability’ retards, perhaps, business leadership (CEOs, COOs, CFOs) understanding and acceptance of the potential sustainability can have for a business.  Beyond the savings which result from eco-efficiency initiatives, beyond the increased stock value from consumers who trust the brand, beyond the practical benefits of recycling or supporting community, sustainability for business is more about philosophy and spirit that it is about any series of actions or stated commitments.

This philosophy of sustainability guides responsible actions and sparks innovation for better practices.  In a culture of sustainable business, certain decisions don’t get made because they violate the fundamental tenets on which the business-and the greater natural order– are based.  Reward systems are created to inspire greater commitment to the philosophy of balance and restoration than short term profit and exploitation.

Have you ever known (or been?) an absent parent or lover who substituted emotional investment with monetary investment?  The purchase of a new bicycle after a family argument, or the buying of flowers for the forgotten anniversary might serve as familiar examples.  But what would most people rather have?  Most would choose to have the heart, spirit and trust-affirming emotional presence of the loved one, rather than a material surrogate.

BP invested heavily in Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives. Yet, in spite of their focus on the Carbon Disclosure Project, or their annual reports compliant with Global Reporting Initiative criteria, or their contributions in support of communities struck by natural disaster they, like so many companies, missed the larger point.  It might be said that The Deepwater Horizon tragedy was the result of a lack of corporate culture—an emotional investment in sustainability as a core value and business philosophy and way of working that would have prevented the disaster in the first place.