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

Let me know what you think?

One of the panellist was Dr Ian Lee, an expert on the aviation industry from the Sprott School of Business . In the dialog Dr Lee described how the rising price of fuel will affect the airline industry. In his research, he predicts that by 2015 if fuel costs stay at the current rate there will be only 8 airlines in business in Europe. If the price of petroleum rises to $200 dollars a barrel then there will only be 5 airlines left in business. He expressed that the Industries visions of switching to biofuels are way off and that the science won’t be able to deliver any real results until 2050.

The presentation was a real eye opener. If Dr Lee’s projections happen as I expect they will, we are faced with a major shift in the way that we work and travel in the future. I am not a greeny scaremonger – but do strongly believe that destinations and all events businesses need to carefully consider their business strategies. The current business plan predicting constant growth into the next 5 or 10 years – may not actually be valid. In the not too distant future, we may be set to experience an external factor that will create a major culture shift to the way we travel and as Dr Lee suggests a return to the 1950’s style of traveling when air travel was just for the wealthy. This would have serious impacts to the meetings and tourism industries…

You can follow and participate virtually in more of these challenging types of discussions at the GMIC conference. www.sustainablemeetingsconference.com

10.  The app.  Rapid uptake of smart phones and cool apps to help planners and suppliers integrate a wide array of services and communications in a user-friendly and paper-free way. This link offers a long list of viable apps for planners and, of course this one, too.

09. Food Banks. Creatively finding ways to bridge the gap between food safety and waste, a number of local food banks have been successful in receiving safe, unserved food from events which would otherwise have been wasted. We were inspired to see over 3000 meals go to communities in need during EWEC 2010, Warsaw

08. CVB Leadership.  Struggling for relevance in some communities, many CVB/DMO’s saw opportunity in not only promoting the sustainable features of their city, but worked to build capacity through the sponsorship of education and involvement in groups like the Green Meeting Industry Council

07. Community Action.  Sustainable events go beyond ‘green meetings’ by having effective plans to bring consideration, if not reward, to people in the communities they visit. Although not yet mainstream, many (such as UUA here and *blush* our own here) events are working to include ‘giving back’ programs.

06. Recycled carpets. The Carpet America Recovery Effort estimates that in 2009, 311 million (141M kilos) of carpet (of the 5.9 billion pounds thrown away) were recycled in the USA alone. That was a 19 million pound improvement over 2008, but way, way short of the goal of 40% of total carpet discarded.  Clearly, that huge pile of waste is not entirely from events/exhibitions, but carpet waste is something of a dirty secret in the meetings industry and it’s encouraging to see major players (IMEX, as one example) including plans to reduce carpet use and/or recycling what is used.

05. Hybrid events. Concerns that an integration of virtual elements (live streaming, video links, e.g.) will reduce attendance or bring risk for planners (reliability, cost) –or that virtual events would somehow push aside the need for face to face meetings–seemed to wane in 2010 as many events reported successful initiatives to blend face to face meetings with virtual elements, thereby creating ‘hybrid’ events. Still expensive and still not glitch-free, hybrid events are established as an industry mega-trend.

04. Exhibitor Engagement.  Exhibitions represent great waste, both material and carbon emissions. Efforts, such as those deployed by US Green Build, to engage exhibitors with education and incentive gained some traction in 2010 in spite of this being a sensitive area as planners are not keen to reduce booth space or put limits on sponsor investment.

03. Integrated carbon tracking tools. Practical, smart tools became accepted in 2010 and are being integrated into event registration systems allowing not only greater capture of delegate travel data but also increasing the amount of investment into carbon offset projects.

02. Sustainable Event Reporting.  Perhaps the only real cure against ‘greenwashing’ is effective and transparent reporting.  From the UN Global Compact Leaders Summit to Oracle Open World to the aforementioned EWEC 2010, diverse and influential organizers showed the importance of measuring and reporting sustainable event results.

01. The emergence of standards for sustainable event management. Actually a story from 2009, but continuing into 2010 and 2011 has been the development and release of standards which define criteria for sustainable event management.  Work was completed to advance the Global Reporting Initiative event sector supplement, the APEX green meeting standards and the ISO 20121 standard for sustainability in event management as well as the Copenhagen Sustainable Meetings Protocol which seeks to integrate and advance the use of each.

The above listed highlights from 2010 bring optimism that 2011 can build on this momentum and perhaps even ‘turn the corner’ for greater, more meaningful action in pursuit of sustainable events by an even greater number of suppliers and planners.  These 2010 highlights, indicate emerging trends for 2011—and beyond—because they represent advantage and benefit to event owners and planners. Each highlight listed here helps to build the business case for an improved, more responsible event industry which can continue to bring reward to communities everywhere.  Thinking that the meetings industry can bring real change across all market sectors is inspiring but such optimism must be fuel for greater effort.

Risk lurks in 2011.  Economies are struggling and people are busy.  Change is difficult. People want action but wait for others to deliver it.  A unbalanced focus on environmental responsibility may compromise needed advancement of social justice.

2011 is here and, for sustainable meetings and events, it’s time we turned the corner.

What highlights did we miss?  What examples need to be shared?  Please share your examples and thoughts here and, if at all possible, make a plan to attend the Green Meeting Industry Council’s Sustainable Meetings Conference next month in Portland, OR, USA and MPI’s European Meetings & Events conference, Dusseldorf, where, among other relevant sessions we’ll  hold a workshop on engaging suppliers for sustainable event success.

This presentation uses case studies to highlight some of the key aspects of the pillars of a sustainable meetings destination

• Leadership
• Strategy development
• Stakeholder engagement
• Good governance and communication

The strategy and stakeholder engagement approaches they developed were so successful, they’ve been captured in two very special reports: The COP15 Sustainable Event Report and, it’s corollary document focused on high level strategy, The Copenhagen Sustainable Meetings Protocol (CSMP). These reports represent the latest, leading example of just how far the meetings industry has come on the journey to more sustainable events.

Webinar Launch!

In honor of Earth Day, the Copenhagen Sustainable Meetings Coalition will officially launch the two reports. In addition, a free webinar (register here) administered by the team that organized COP15 and the Copenhagen city preparations, will provide background and greater detail to sustainable event management strategy as outlined in the CSMP.

Download your copy of the reports here:

Truly a group effort from the entire coalition team, Guy and I are both proud to have participated in this project as authors of both reports. Please share with us your thoughts and ideas for getting these strategies into action throughout the industry.

This week I have had the pleasure of working in Andalusia in the South of Spain. I had not been to Sevilla for some years and I was struck by how this beautiful  city had invested in pedestrianizing the center, installing a new hi-tech tramway and a public biking system. The city has a clear climate strategy and with other integrated plans they have made a substantial difference to the sustainability of the city (health, pollution, quality of life, environmental impact etc), and have become one of the leading green cities in Spain. However there is a total disconnect between the meetings industry and the city government in terms of sustainability. This is not a hard criticism of the CVB and other players but indicative of the issues we face in many destinations around the world. They lack knowledge and leadership: Someone to understand and see the risks and opportunities, grab the bull by the horns and implement a strategic sustainable destination sustainability plan.

This is what London, Melbourne, Portland, Copenhagen and Stockholm are doing, just to name a few of the leaders in sustainable tourism. They realize that add on green initiatives don’t deliver sufficient results – but strategic sustainability does!

Closer to Sevilla, The Costa Del Sol Patronato of Tourism have just started a sustainability project. Led by Belen Gascon, head of the CVB, it aims to transform the destination. Clearly a huge challenge – but we know that change is possible, and that this only happens when someone with guts and vision, stands up and goes against the flow. Belen is typical of the type of committed, remarkable people who are engaging their friends, colleagues and clients in a new vision of tomorrow’s destination; a destination that will be more competitive, more responsible and healthier. Basically a great place to live and work that will be financially, socially and environmentally more sustainable.

Tribe of leaders

In July I take over as President of the GMIC. It is becoming increasingly clear to me, that the GMIC’s role is to help these change agents become better and more fully equipped. The GMIC has to give them the tools, and tricks to become inspirational sustainability leaders, to become the special forces of the sustainable meetings world. The GMIC has to be the place where these guys can “hang out” to “refuel and recharge” with energy and knowledge, sharing their experiences with a tribe of people who speak their same language and stand for something much more important.

If you are a Special agent of change – I recommend you consider becoming a member of the GMIC. www.greenmeetings.info. We have a 67% growth rate in the last year, with 600+ members in 30 countries, 45 business partners, 8 chapters formed and or in formation.

GMIC members are the thought leaders of sustainability. Not surprisingly our members are building highly competitive businesses that our showing above average returns in these tough economic times: Portland, Copenhagen, Vancouver, Denver, The Estoril Congress Center, the Amsterdam Rai Congress Center, EWEA, AMEX, MCI, Novo Nordisk, Oracle, Microsoft, Cisco, MeetGreen and a long list of other leaders in sustainability.

Many communities  incinerate waste in an  effort to reduce costs (financial, aesthetic, perhaps environmental?) associated with landfills. The act of incineration often provides a secondary benefit of generating energy.  In Copenhagen, Denmark, for example, 5% of the energy source mix comes from the incineration of waste.  Landfill space saved, energy produced.. All good, right?

Maybe not.  Concerned about the incineration of trash, and the potential effect this practice may have on discouraging recycling rates,  I tracked down this article. and this article. I included in as a Twitter post (here) where the link got a lot of traffic, indicating larger interest.  While there are studies offering support for incineration (normally underscoring the benefits outlined above)  it’s difficult to justify  the wasted resources represented in the incinerated ‘waste’ stream (including PET plastic, cardboard, office paper, glass and aluminum), as well as the mountains of toxic slag which must be landfilled or shipped to nations too poor to refuse them.

In her keynote address to the Green Meeting Industry Council, Annie Leonard of ‘The Story of Stuff’ fame shared her own up-close and personal observations of these piles, recounting the journey of one such pile which traveled from New York City to Haiti and, once discovered as harmful to the environment, back again to NYC for better handling.

Not so fun fact: Plastic

It is estimated that 6-8% of total annual oil production goes to the production of plastic.  Of the plastic produced, just 7% is recycled.  The rest? Landfilled or incinerated.

In his book, Sustainability in Business, JP Bergqvist calls waste ‘valuable resources in the wrong place’.  Recyclable materials, like plastic, bound for the municipal incinerator are an especially painful example of this observation.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Incinerate

The reality, at least in the short term, is that incineration probably has a role to play in the ongoing challenge of municipal waste management.  What’s missing, perhaps, is a more aggressive approach to reducing waste in the first place and optimizing recycling.    Destinations, and the businesses who operate in those destinations, must pursue ever-more effective waste management systems which focus on the Reduce, Reuse, Recycle model, complete with published targets and leadership support. Meeting planners, meanwhile, can serve as advocates for such practices and create market demand for recycling by asking better questions and measuring the waste from their events.

Recyclable materials..  they’re too precious to burn.   Looking forward to your thoughts and ideas.

Sustainable Event Planners must initiate processes to factor in the environmental performance of the destination itself.  Armed with reports such as Yale’s Environmental Performance Index and Best Places to Meet Green planners can begin to make informed inquiries and defensible decisions. Not only do top performing destinations offer better potential for sustainable event fundamentals such as comprehensive waste management (minimum 50% of total waste recycled or composted), efficient public transportation and access to sustainable foods, but can deliver capacity to reduce the event related greenhouse gas emissions.  Hotel rooms in Sweden, (and other nations with more than half of their energy supply from renewable sources) emit half the carbon as hotels whose energy comes from brown coal.

The upcoming APEX green meeting standards, a collaboration between the USEPA and the Convention Industry Council, identifies a comprehensive list of considerations for planners and destinations, themselves.

Are you considering the environmental, or better yet sustainable, performance of your events’ host city?  If not, what resources would you need to start?

Guy Giving Keynote at Mexico Tourism Congress

In the attached presentation I talk about

• Risk and opportunities presented to Smart destinations around the “sustainability revolutions”
• Provide some examples of destinations who are leading the market
• Provide a framework that CVBs can use to help them become a “green leader”

I was previously in LA and met with the city officials who are implementing a very interesting and smart program of greening.