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Green Meeting Standards Mark Industry Transformation
By Adam Hardiman | July 29, 2010
After three years of rigorous debate and extensive input from more than 200 volunteers and pan-industry experts, a uniform set of green meetings standards is set for release before the end of this year.
A joint project of the Accepted Practices Exchange (APEX) and the American Society for Testing Materials (ASTM), the APEX/ASTM Green Meeting and Events Standards will articulate a set of policies and procedures for meeting planners and suppliers to implement sustainable practices in their business.
Green Meetings Industry Council (GMIC) Executive Director Tamara Kennedy-Hill and Convention Industry Council (CIC) APEX Director Lawrence Leonard introduced the standards’ key objectives at a Tuesday afternoon session during MPI’s 2010 World Education Congress.
Green meeting standards mark a first for the meetings industry, following the tradition of other green measurement standards adapted by fields like the building industry, which uses the now-ubiquitous Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) certification to classify green buildings. Meeting planners and suppliers have previously lacked the tools and formal policy framework to measure event sustainability.
“We haven’t been able to measure what a green event looks like,” said Kennedy-Hill.
The APEX/ASTM standards will be voluntary, not mandatory for meeting professionals. They consist of four levels that measure sustainability. “It creates an entry point for everyone,” Leonard said. “We don’t say ‘this is the standard and you either adhere to it or you don’t,’ because we recognize [sustainability] is a journey.”
The consensus-based approach to developing the standards has resulted in slight delays in their release—the green standards were originally intended to be unveiled at #WEC010—but they’re close to completion. Leonard intends that they be adopted as practice shortly after their release.
“The commitment we have is ensure it’s implemented into practice,” he said. “It’s going to help organizations like MPI and GMIC.”
Topics: Corporate Social Responsibility, Green Meeting Industry Council, Green Meetings, Meeting Professionals International, News Capsules |