"Get Your Green On" Wins IMEX Award
Posted May 2012
MeetGreen® is proud to acknowledge our very own, Shawna McKinley, along with
her collaborators, Judy Kucharuk Footprint Management Systems and Trevor Roald
from QuickMobile for winning the Commitment to Community Award for their
"Get Your Green On" project at IMEX 2012 in Frankfurt.
Going Green Still a Focus in the Trade Show Industry?
Posted May 2012
In the wake of the economic downturn, one might assume that the
environmental movement in meetings, events and trade shows would have
slowed or even come to a halt as the industry turned the bulk of its
attention to financial survival.
But surprisingly, if anything, the green movement has continued its
forward momentum despite the recession, with no sign of stopping. So
what’s the main driver? Many shows, companies and organizations have
realized that going green just makes smart business sense.
“The environmental movement in our industry has increased and become
more mainstream,” said Nancy Zavada, principle of MeetGreen. “I
completely expected the opposite to happen, but I think it comes down to
the fact that many and/or most of the strategies for environmental
meetings offer cost savings.”
She added, "that really hit home for hotels and convention centers,
since their energy, water and waste savings made a huge impact on their
bottom line. People started looking at (greening) not because it was the
right thing to do, but because it made an economic difference. For that
reason (the recession) was actually helpful." Read the whole article from TSSN
here
What Shade of Green Is Your Event?
Posted May 2012
"We all want to produce events that reach our business objectives and
reduce impact on the environment. However, until recently we didn’t
have planning guidelines or a means of measuring just how green an
event actually was. With the release of the industry-accepted APEX/ASTM
Sustainable Meetings Standards, we now have benchmarks
that event planners and suppliers can actually plan for and measure how
green their event is..."
"Spearhearting" The Green
Meetings Movment
Posted April 2012
Amy & Nancy are
SO honored to be noted by Meeting
Change. We are passionate about green meetings and helping our clients
achieve
their goals.
"There are many women that we feel should be on
any list of the most influential people in our
industry. These are the women we feel should be honored for
their true influence on the meetings and events industry:
Amy
Spatrisano and Nancy Zavada: They
spearhearted* the sustainability movement in our industry. The founders
of MeetGreen and the Green Meetings Industry Council have had a
tremendous influence on our industry bringing sustainability issues and
the need for measurement to the forefront." Read the whole article here.
"*Spearhearting
is a word that Elizabeth and I use to describe crafting an initiative
that precisely targets relevant results with consideration, concern and
care for all stakeholders."
"GYGO" MeetGreen®'s Got Game
Posted March 2012
It's More
Than A Game, It's A Way Of Life.
At
Event Camp Vancouver Footprint Management Systems Inc., MeetGreen® and
QuickMobile set out to prove that event attendees could learn, engage
and be influenced to reduce footprint through simple, fun actions. The
result? An interactive mobile game, Get Your Green On, a “solutionary”
event experience integrating social media, technology and corporate
social responsibility.
Amy Meets with Inspiration Cafe
at PSAV
Posted March 2012
MeetGreen® principal, Amy Spatrisano, chats with the folks at the PSAV
Inspiration
Café during PCMA about what companies and meeting planners can do to
incorporate a green strategy into their events, no matter what the
size. Many people seem to think they must either commit 100% to making
sustainable choices, or make none at all, but Amy explains that this
just isn't the case. Sustainability is a journey, and simply starting
with small steps, like making just a few green choices for your
meetings and events is a great place to start. Amy gives some great
advice about where to start in this informative interview.
It's Easy To Be Green, When You
Have The Right Tools
Posted March 2012
MPI
recently interviewed Amy Spatrisano, for their recent article: "It's
Easy To Be Green, When You Have The Right Tools." Find out what these
tools are (hint:
read our books yet?) and why the meeting industry continues
to turn to MeetGreen® for innovation around sustainable meetings.
"Expand
the size of your gathering to a few hundred or thousand people, and
it’s easy to see why the meeting and event industry has a reputation of
waste…Things are changing, however, and meeting professionals shouldn’t
ignore sustainability practices, says Amy Spatrisano, principal of
MeetGreen® and co-founder of the Green Meeting Industry Council..."
The Latest News on
the APEX Green Meeting Standards:
Posted February 2012
It's official, the APEX/ASTM Green Event Standards are published!
At last, the Standards are here. For your convenience we have compiled
some of our previous articles and webinars on the subject to get you up
to speed on what these standards are about, the impact on the industry
and why they will be important to you.
The Global Reporting Initiative Launches the Event Organizers Sector
Supplement…say what?
Have you heard the one about,
"how many standards does it take for the meeting/event industry to have
one they might actually use?" Apparently, the answer is
three. (See full blog post)
Event organizers can
now report on sustainability issues
like impacts on communities, natural environments, and local and global
economies,
thanks to new guidance published January
24, 2012 by the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).
MeetGreen®
helped developed the guidance as part of a multi-stakeholder Working
Group.
(See full press release)
Reusing signage from one year to the next, requesting locally
sourced food and donating the leftovers, and encouraging attendees to
walk or use pedi-cabs—those are a few of the actions Oracle
has
implemented at OpenWorld and JavaOne, two annual events the company
hosts simultaneously in San Francisco for more than 46,000 attendees.
Oracle is now in its fifth year of implementing and tracking
sustainability practices at these events and recently released a
comprehensive report, prepared by MeetGreen, on its strategies and
results. The report is a blueprint of green initiatives and supports
the company’s goal of helping others understand how to
incorporate
sustainability into events. (See full article)
Is My Meeting
Green?
The meeting industry may finally answer this question when the Accepted
Practices Exchange (APEX) launches its standards for best practices for
green events.Although trying to pin down the exact launch date reminds
me of one of my favorite sayings: "Everything in the universe
is
subject to change...and everything is on schedule." (See
Full Story )
