Are you bombarded with news promoting feel-good green initiatives from every vendor on your list? Are you trying to green your meetings in a way that will really make a difference, but don’t know where to start? Pretty much every industry has been swept up in this “green” tide and for the most part it’s a good thing. But it also breeds lots of confusion and “greenwashing” (basically when companies exaggerate how good their products and services really are for the environment). In our upcoming State of the Industry issue, part of what I tried to do was to wrap my head around green meetings—what’s legit, what’s not, what’s happening now and what’s next.
You’ll have to wait for the issue to get the full story, but I wanted to share a resource that’s been great. The Green Meeting is simple and refreshing in an era when it seems everyone is trying to tell you about “Five Easy Steps To Green Your Meeting.” Instead of telling you how to green your meeting, The Green Meeting folks simply bring you daily news updates of happenings in the sustainable meetings arena. Vancouver’s convention complex just finished a green roof. The Hawaii Big Island Visitors Bureau launched a Web site instructing tourists on how to visit the island responsibly. A hotel and meeting center in Rockville, Md., is switching to 100-percent wind power electricity.
Reading these little tidbits every day gave me a fuller picture of which hospitality industry players are leading the way, how often and how many green initiatives are underway (more than I realized), and after a while I felt I had a better overall understanding of the lay of the land in terms of green meetings.
While there are tons of reliable resources out there that show planners how to organize more sustainable meetings, (which you can read about in the winter issue) it can be overwhelming. The reality is, there is no checklist of steps toward perfectly “green meetings.” It’s a process. And the beginning of that process is learning about what’s out there and being a savvy consumer of information. At least in my humble opinion, The Green Meeting makes it easy to take that first step.
--Marni Ginther
Assistant Editor
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