If you don’t consider the scarcity of water a huge issue for the citizens of this planet, you haven’t been paying attention. Water scarcity affects 2.7 billion people worldwide for at least a month a year and it is getting worse. Are we in the hospitality industry paying attention? Several recent examples of this have [...]
The good news is, each year meeting professionals get a little more green savvy and the trend towards more sustainable meetings initiatives continues. Thanks to research by Meetings & Conventions Magazine each year, we have been able to watch closely as our industry gets on board with green policies and procedures.The recent survey reveals that [...]
My passion for Planet Earth and my passion for the meetings industry have dovetailed into a career in sustainable meeting management. MeetGreen is honored to support the efforts of organizations such as Society for Ecological Restoration, Living Future, The Nature Conservancy, and National Wildlife Refuge as they work towards a more livable world.An opening address [...]
The three-arrow logo which has come to symbolize, Reduce, Reuse, Recycle needs a makeover. Somewhere in this concentric circle, we need to integrate, Rethink. Rethink, before any of the other "R"s.Hasn't the hospitality industry been rethinking our events lately anyway? Given the current economic, societal and environmental atmosphere, we as meeting professionals still have a [...]
As meeting planners, we spend A LOT of time in airports, hotels, and ground transportation in cities around the world. As a company, we strive to be good citizens of the world environmentally and socially. We train and plan for disasters, weather challenges and crisis management.When it came to our training on how to be [...]
What was I thinking when I started out on this green meeting journey? There wouldn't be any resistance by venues, hotels and suppliers? The key stakeholders of organizations would immediately embrace sustainability as "the right thing to do?" We wouldn't have to prove the economic savings before anyone would listen? That it would be easy [...]
According to over 600 planners who completed the Meetings Focus Trends Survey, it's the "not so little" things worrying them, such as: Low budgets The economy Increasing costs of venues and suppliers Increased workload due to reduced staffing More complicated contract negotiations Decreasing attendance Each and every one of these is cause for concern and [...]
"The world is changing and I am on the transition team." This is an exciting time to be on the transition team for meetings and events. After years of meeting planning practices being fairly static, our world is being shaped by:TechnologyHybrid eventsClimate change Introverts finding their voiceSocial mediaIncreased awareness of organizations' corporate citizenshipSustainabilitySustained economic pressureGlobalizationWell-informed, involved attendeesSo if [...]
The headline reads, "Is Green a Priority? Most Planners Have Stepped Up Conservation Efforts." It is a headline that, five years ago, very few would have believed still newsworthy in 2012. The greening of meeting practices was thought to be a fad that would soon disappear like registering by fax machine. Yet, it has been [...]
Call me crazy, but when I see a bin like this...I leap to the conclusion that items placed in the correct slot will be recycled. Not necessarily true! Within days of the greenwashing article I wrote being posted, I came across more "dirty laundry." Our client was using a property they held a meeting in several [...]