Less Conversation More Action » green destinations

Behind the scenes of a sustainable EU Presidency

Guy Bigwood — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 14:53:53 +0000

“To have success in sustainability – you just have to make it sufficiently hard for yourself that it becomes easy”. This was the advice from Kirsten Aggersborg, the director of the super sustainable Hotel Axel in Copenhagen.

I think there is some real value to this observation, and this is no where more true than with the Danish Presidency of the European Union Council.

By June 30, when the European Union Presidency 2012 Denmark concludes, the Danish Foreign Ministry Logistics team will have supported the organization of 100 meetings serving 15,000 total participants while meeting criteria of the ISO 20121 event sustainability management system.

With a team of just 22 people, the logistics team delivered an EU Presidency at a fraction of the total cost of past Presidencies. The savings were an important result of the sustainable event management system, the highlights of which are featured here in this behind the scenes video. A video that really highlights how sustainable event management is really not that complicated, but it requires leadership, vision, commitment and discipline.

I take my hat off to Andreas and the Government team for demonstrating the business case of sustainable meetings. And also to the Bella Center, for the paradigm shift in sustainability performance in the last 3 years.

MCI Sustainability Services supported the Danish Foreign ministry in the development of the ISO20121 Sustainable Event Management System, and in the application for third party certification. This project will be one of the largest most ambitious implementations of sustainability in the meetings industry.For more info.

MCI have also led a stakeholder engagement initiative to increase the sustainability and outreach of the Danish Meetings Industry. A GRI Compliant report will be available in the summer on www.sustainableeventsdenmark.org

The Business case for Sustainability in tough times

Guy Bigwood — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 10:46:10 +0000

Following on my Michaels post earlier, I wanted to attached a presentation that we created to really define the business case for sustainability in the meetings industry. The presentation details the opportunities and costs benefits using a whole list of research data collected by us and many of the global top publications and consulting organisations.

Its prepared in a generic way and so is very relevant for agencies, planners, suppliers and destination manager.

In the last week I delivered it to a packed house at the Costa Del Sol Convention Bureaus annual innovation forum and in Lisbon at ExpoEvents.

Remember: Greenwashing is ’Sly’, not cool

Michael Luehrs — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 09:15:07 +0000

In spite of a the litany of columns, reports and studies on the topic of Greenwashing, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenwash), it seems that confusion ensues, resulting in more unsubstantiated claims which only serve to make the market more jaded and fussy with those that make them. I think the causes can often be traced to over-enthusiastic marketing teams who forget that what you do matters more than what you say. For these teams and others like them, I offer the following helpful memory device:

Responsible communication is Clive Owen. Children of Men, Clive Owen, especially.

Discounted by many, dogged and committed, often indelicate, the guy backs up his statements and pretty much single-handedly saves the world. No pretentiousness, just results. Action first, communication second. Have you seen this movie? You must.

Greenwashing, then, is Sylvester Stallone, let’s say in Rambo III.

Bless him for his energy and creativity, there’s a lot more bluster than substance here. Overly produced and with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer, his performance is wholly unbelievable. He phones it in. The result is a lot of irritation and an immediately forgettable product.

Both get attention, but which would you rather be? Cool and current and relevant and admired? Or somebody… well, somebody used as an unfavorable comparison?

Not that you’ll ever need more than this mental image, here’s some links to deeper research on the topic:

http://www.terrachoice.com/Home/Six%20Sins%20of%20Greenwashing

http://archive.greenpeace.org/comms/97/summit/greenwash.html

http://www.futerra.co.uk/downloads/Greenwash_Guide.pdf

Creating and Marketing Sustainable Destinations

Guy Bigwood — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 08:30:52 +0000

With the growing trend of sustainability, many destinations are now preparing themselves as “green meeting destinations”. In 2008, we increasingly started to work with DMOs and CVBs who wanted to go green. Not surprisingly cities are seeing that green has financial, branding and motivational benefits.

The following presentation highlights the high level findings of some introductory research into the green pioneering cities. We extrapolated the best practice and top ideas from these and others examples, and then created a strategic sustainable destination framework. We are now using this in our consulting work, and it is helping to speed up strategic planning and implementation of operational and marketing programs.