No Satisfying Those Sustainable Meetings People
Sometimes, there’s no satisfying those sustainable meetings people. In this case, that would be me. It might be you, too. Last night, I checked into a hotel in Toronto and learned about a green choice program that answers one of the onsite sustainability issues I’ve found most annoying over the years. I’m pleased. I’m worried [...]
Chat Yields Wealth of Info & Discussion on Event Sustainability Standards
The following is a summary of an #eventtable chat held 3/27 with Andrew Walker, event sustainability specialist and founder of E3 Strategy. There are new standards for event sustainability. That means, event professionals now have an agreed-upon definition of what it takes to ensure meetings and events are organized with social, environmental and economic sustainability [...]
Four Tough Challenges that Make Sustainability Easier
Earlier this month, a colleague shook up my thinking about green meetings with an idea that could shift any organization’s sustainability program in a more practical direction. And here’s the twist: the surest way to simplify our industry’s approach to sustainability might be to sharpen our focus on the toughest sustainability issues we face. Thanks [...]
Sweating the Small Stuff on Sustainable Hotels
I’ve just recently returned from a month in Western Canada, about half of it spent onsite. It was a good trip, but I have a quibble with one of the hotels where I stayed. It’s a small quibble, as quibbles go. You wouldn’t be wrong to conclude that if this was my only complaint, I [...]
Behind the Curtain: Why the Meetings Supply Chain Matters
One of the most profound ways for our industry to green its operations is to think of everything we do as part of a supply chain, not just as an end product. It’s a simple mental shift that carries big implications for meetings and events. It may run counter to the training and habits that [...]
Okay, You Caught Me
(Editor’s note: The following declaration was retrieved from a little-used email cache in The Conference Publishers’ account management department. Those responsible have been sacked hacked.) The recent release of emails hacked from leading climate scientists has convinced me: the jig is up. I can finally admit the truth. I am a member of a vast, [...]
Does Demand from Meetings Drive Airlines’ Greenwashing?
Whether or not it’s deliberate, a major travel industry association seems to be applying a touch of greenwash to its members’ steadily growing carbon footprint. And it seems likely that continuing demand from meetings and events might be one of the underlying causes. Sometimes it isn’t clear whether an organization has set out to mislead, [...]
A Virtual (R)Evolution-Part 1
Part 1: A Recipe for Disaster Start out with a well-rounded, well-founded measure of enthusiasm for the latest virtual meeting technologies. Add a healthy dose of concern about climate change, with a dollop of unintended greenwashing. Factor in a preoccupation with cutting meeting costs to the bone, without pausing to consider what may be lost [...]
“Water Where It Didn’t Used To Be”
The Arctic is changing so quickly that it’s become one of the many early warning systems for global climate change. Each year brings new reports of ice sheets breaking off into the sea, along with a mad scramble to plan shipping routes and resource development projects that would have been difficult or impossible a generation [...]
