Green Meetings Save Money and Natural Resources

The problem: Meeting waste!

The solution: Green Meetings!

The white paper, titled "The Economy and the Environment: One Solution for Two Meeting and Event Industry Issues", finds that what makes the best financial sense is often the environmentally friendly choice as well. The white paper outlines the advantages to green meetings, starting with cost savings.

Greening a meeting involves rethinking the meeting experience, and how information, accommodations and travel are accomplished.

• Reducing handouts for a 1,300-person conference over two days can save $2,000, 488 pounds of wood, and 79 pounds of solid waste from the landfill.
• Reducing daily shuttles by 11 buses for a five-day, 40,000-attendee conference can save $60,000 and about 486,000 pounds of carbon dioxide.
• A 150-room hotel that has a towel and sheet reuse program can save 6,000 gallons of water and 40 gallons of detergent per month.
• Reusing 45 percent of banners for a 40,000-attendee, five-day conference can save about $89,000 and divert 12,750 square feet of vinyl banner material from the landfill.
• A 1,300-room hotel that switches to fluorescent lights in rooms and lobby areas can save $51,000 in energy costs per year.

Reducing exotic menus and giving attendees feasible raw and vegetarian choices can reduce costs as well as the transportation and greenhouse gases needed for meat production, transporting the food, and even kitchen costs.

The options for greening hospitality are growing rapidly as people ask for better options and professionals in the field experiment to find faster, easier, more common sense approaches to meeting management.

You can join the movement. Ask for greener solutions. Provide positive feedback for green service availability. And do you part! Recycle, reduce, and reuse the natural resources you consume at meetings.