Via Don Carli on the Facebook machine,
a new report published by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) offers guidance for those seeking to plan “green events.”
The new Event Organizers Sector Supplement (EOSS) will enable event organizers to report their sustainability performance in a comparable way. The sustainability reporting guidance, tailored for the events sector, aims to make reporting more relevant for event organizers by defining how to provide qualitative and quantitative information on sustainability issues.
In addition to more widely applicable issues such as greenhouse gas emissions and waste, the guidance helps event organizers report on more specific issues including attendee travel, legacy of the event, and initiatives taken at the event to promote sustainability and transparency.
Although for me “green travel” usually refers to the effects of heavy turbulence, I’ve seen some modest attention paid to the environmental impacts of conferences, particularly larger ones, and anecdotal evidence suggests it is increasing. (Pet peeve in hotels: while they will go to great lengths to warn me of the environmental damage wrought by their having to wash towels everyday, in-room coffee service contains a plethora of wrappers, coffee maker insert trays, cups, condiments, and other plastic and paper discardables. And why do they always give me more decaf than regular?)
“Over the last 10 years there has been a growing interest in the greening of events, with more and more organizations considering the sustainability performance of their activities,” said Maaike Fleur, senior manager Reporting Framework at the Global Reporting Initiative.
“Public sustainability reporting is still quite a new concept for event organizers, but we anticipate that this new guidance will help them be more transparent about the impacts of their activities.”
“Reporting is also about sharing best practices and can enhance learning for event organizers not yet so familiar with sustainability strategy and reporting,” Fleur added. “Attendees are interested to know the sustainability strategies behind events.
Some would say that the truly green event is one that doesn’t occur, or occurs only virtually, but as much I am a big fan of Skype (although, let’s not forget, Skype calling has the same environmental footprint as any other digital medium, so it’s not
perfectly green), it can’t be denied that in-person “social networking” is still often highly valuable. So, like most things that have heavy environmental feetprint, the idea is not necessarily to completely scrap them, but to find ways of achieving the same benefits for ourselves and our businesses while at the same time working to minimize environmental impacts.
I am still amused by one phone exchange several years ago between two colleagues, who shall remain nameless, which concerned Colleague #1 flying cross-country to an event (I am paraphrasing from memory):
COLLEAGUE #1: “That would be the longest flight in the continental U.S. and would be environmentally irresponsible for me to take it.
COLLEAGUE #2: But the plane is going there anyway!
Good points, both.
