The meeting and event industry is one of the more wasteful and environmentally harmful industries on the planet.
Think of it this way: An average corporate meeting flies in anywhere from 500 to 3,000 employees to a specific destination (large conventions bring in 10,000 to 25,000 people to any given city). For this one meeting:
Each one of those people flew to the meeting, using, on average, 800 lbs of CO2
Each attendee averages four bottles of water per day; for a three-day meeting of 3,000 people, that's 36,000 bottles of water!
Each person receives a newspaper at their hotel room, and only 20% of those are read; and at most meetings, none are recycled.
It takes an unimaginable amount of water, chemicals, and energy to clean each hotel room. For one hotel guest for a two-night stay, it takes 24 gallons of water just to clean the linens; not to mention the water and chemicals used to clean the room.
Meetings materials consume immeasurable amounts of paper and ink.
But a lot can be done to turn this around; from the smallest efforts to the large, when dealing with multitudes of people any little bit helps.
One of the easiest and most economical ways to cut back is to eliminate the option of bottled water at your meetings. Offer pitchers of water instead; this saves water, plastic, and fuel needed to make the bottled water.
Print all of your meeting materials on recycled paper, and use vegetable-based ink.
Negotiate recycling pick-up into your hotel contract. Provide clearly marked recycling bins throughout your meeting space; include plastic, aluminum cans, glass, paper, and newspaper.
Eliminate newspaper waste by forgoing the option to have newspapers delivered to each guest room. Provide newspapers at your Hospitality Desk for your guests who would like one.
Order organic and locally-farmed food for your menus.
Familiarize yourself with endangered or unethical fishing. Remove halibut, orange roughy, tuna, red snapper, and Chilean Sea Bass from your menus.
Remove single-packet servings from all buffets and beverage stations; i.e. instead of single-packet ketchup or sugar packs, provide larger bottles or jars.
Instead of plastic hotel key cards, have specially made cards made of corn; and personalize them with your company logo.
These are just a very few of the unlimited ways you can make an impact on our environment at your meetings. With a little bit of self-education, creativity, and effort, you can make a huge difference; while also showing your attendees or customers that you care about our planet. It's a win-win situation; so start some new (better) habits today!
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