Yes, You Can Go Green....and Still Save Some Green


We hear it everyday, in fact we are surrounded by it – “Go Green”, “Be Green”, “Make it More Green”. It is simple enough to achieve in our personal lives. We just use less fuel by walking when we can, carry reusable bags instead of getting a ton of plastic ones each time we grocery shop, recycle, etc.  But how do we do this for a meeting when everyone’s ideas and tastes are different?  And more importantly, how can we turn this positive impact on the environment into a positive impact on the meeting’s bottom line?

The first step is to know your audience and take baby steps as needed, BUT everyone can achieve a greener meeting while still saving costs and enhancing the experience of attendees. Many organizations revolve around the green issue and do a lot more, however, following are some steps that every organization can take at some point in the near future to lessen their impact on the environment AND save money.

Marketing – Do you really need the flashy 4-color brochure mailed to all prospects? I used to think so, but nowadays I tend to trash the paper invites I get and instead wait until I get the later electronic version where I can click and register online. Personally, I tend to want to let people know that if they are planning to follow up via email they should just save the paper and send only the email. If you plan to go completely electronic in your communications, however, you need to take steps to get the emails of your prospects. Perhaps my clients’ meeting attendances could be higher by mailing to a larger number of people, but given the high percentage of emails that we have accumulated due to previous efforts to obtain them, our clients make out better by only recruiting to those who we have emails on file for. One client last year with a 650 person meeting saved over $20,000 by eliminating all mail conference promotions to potential attendees – AND they had a 15% increase in attendance and over 20% increase in revenue. Go Green…Get some Green!

Food & Beverage – These days, everyone loves their water. Do we really, however, need to provide attendees with an average of 3 plastic bottles of water a day at a cost of over $3 per bottle? Actually no. Providing water stations with glasses (not plastic cups) to a recent group saved thousands of dollars with very few complaints. The biggest complaint was that attendees could not put enough in each glass to last them through a session. Our solution for this group - we have established a sponsorship for reusable water bottles that are eco friendly to be provided to each attendee. This way attendees can fill a 20-ounce bottle to take with them. On the same token, we are looking at making these bottles out of stainless steel so that they can be used for cold or hot drinks. Last year, however, we did manage to save over $4000 by not offering plastic bottles of water. Go Green…Get some Green!

Waste Disposal – Perhaps the simplest way to encourage a more environmentally friendly meeting is to ensure that there are recycle bins conveniently located throughout the conference. While we tried this year to decrease the consumption of sodas in cans by offering teas and beverages in pitchers, the need for sodas is there and we were unable to establish other ways to serve sodas. The recycle bins, however, can be used (and please have separate ones for each) for aluminum cans/bottles/plastics and paper/cardboard. Of importance here is to make sure that the facility has a plan to deal with recyclables. The worst thing you want to do is to have recycle containers when you know the hotel does not have a recycling program and everything will just go in the trash!!

Local Speakers & Talent – How often have you had a West Coast speaker travel to your East Coast meeting or vice versa? Why not save the energy to transport you speaker across country by trying to book a local speaker? There are great speakers located across the country and while you may want Speaker Y from Orlando for your meeting this year in San Diego, why not wait and have Speaker Y next year at your meeting in Nashville and have Speaker X (who you also like) from Los Angeles for your meeting this year? Not only will you cause less energy to be used to transport the speaker, but you will also save in travel costs for the speaker. In fact, most local speakers will discount their fee to speaking within driving distance since they do not have to take so much time out of their schedule for travel. A current client saves thousands of dollars a year by booking local talent (travel and hotel costs) and still receives rave reviews on the keynote speakers. Go Green…Get some Green!

Attendee Handout Materials – I need my attendee manual to follow along and take notes! How often have we heard that? Well, it may not be true, regardless of age. An association client with an average attendee age of late 40s/early 50s was taken paperless this year. We posted the traditional slide/note forms of all Power Points online a week before the conference for everyone who wanted a paper version to download and print and supplied all attendees with a link to do to. We eliminated the print Attendee Manual and instead provided everyone with a thumb drive containing everything and then some that was previously included in the attendee manual. We also notified everyone that if they wanted a printed manual we would have them for a fee equal to the cost to print them. Well, we were prepared for a backlash, but were seriously surprised. Everyone LOVED the idea. In fact, we had ONLY ONE person request the print manual. The client saved $3000 by eliminating the print manual and instead providing thumb drives, PLUS attendees were awed that they could reuse the thumb drives later. Go Green…Get some Green!

While we have only begun to take steps to make our client’s meetings green, we are enthusiastic about the responses so far. Everyone is pleased not only with the favorable response from members, but also the effect on the meeting budget. New initiatives are in the work for the coming years, however, their effect has not yet been verified. I encourage all meeting planners to attempt to incorporate such initiatives into their meetings as they find applicable. If you need assistance on how to move your meeting to a greener meeting, please do not hesitate to contact us.