{"id":282037,"date":"2010-02-05T12:09:29","date_gmt":"2010-02-05T17:09:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.greenrightnow.com\/?p=8784"},"modified":"2010-02-05T12:09:29","modified_gmt":"2010-02-05T17:09:29","slug":"getting-green-meetings-on-the-same-eco-friendly-page","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/282037","title":{"rendered":"Getting green meetings on the same eco-friendly page"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Tom Kessler<\/a>
\nGreen Right Now<\/strong><\/p>\n

Much as a forest fire clears the land and leaves behind essential nutrients to enrich a new generation of growth, the devastation of the travel and meetings industry caused by a global economic collapse has left a few seedlings. One of them is the nascent green meeting industry, which has more than gotten a foothold. In many respects, green meetings are fast becoming the only<\/em> kind of meetings.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Addison Conference Centre in Texas features large windows to let in light, yet overhangs help block out mid-day heat. (Photo: The Town of Addison)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

This new reality is driven in part by the needs of cash-strapped corporations and associations to trim costs and eliminate waste \u2013 an approach that\u2019s central to the green meeting industry. And as large corporations increasingly measure the carbon footprints of all their activities \u2013 travel to meetings and conferences is getting more\u00a0 scrutiny.<\/p>\n

But the green meeting industry <\/strong>suffers the same identity issues facing any adolescent. For one, the terms \u201cgreen meeting\u201d and \u201csustainable meeting\u201d can have <\/strong>different <\/strong>meanings to different people. That\u2019s why the industry is moving to release a new standard in the coming weeks \u2013 a set of requirements that will finally get everyone in the event-planning industry on the same page. At least, that is the hope.<\/p>\n

That standard, and its underlying components, will be the key topic of discussion when the Green Meeting Industry Council holds its 2010 Sustainable Meetings Conference<\/a> in Denver from Feb. 9-11. The council, formed in 2003, has seen a recent surge in membership, jumping from 135 members in 2008 to more than 500 members in 17 countries today.\u00a0
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\u201cThe number of planners and companies planning green meetings has been increasing every year for the last few years,\u201d said Tamara Kennedy-Hill, <\/strong>executive director of the GMIC. \u201cAccording to meeting industry surveys, about 51 percent of meeting planners \u2013 corporate and association \u2013 say that they\u2019re planning or expect to plan a green meeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we\u2019re seeing that the awareness is increasing but the actual practice of \u2018what does that mean\u2019 \u2013 the definition has been changing each year and creating confusion in the marketplace. People will say they are planning a green meeting and they\u2019ll think that means just recycling or cutting back on bottled water usage \u2013 and those are elements \u2013 but the sophistication of what that really means as the integration into their events has really shifted, and that\u2019s why there\u2019s been such a push for standards.\u201d<\/p>\n

With support from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the new standard is being drafted by the Convention Industry Council’s<\/a> Accepted Practices Exchange (APEX) and will be voted on by the venerable standards-setting agency ASTM International<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The standard will focus on nine sectors within the planning process:<\/p>\n