Green Living: Sustainable events

By Giles Broadbent on May 20, 2009 5:07 PM |

Tagged with:

By Andrew Williams

We're running a great event called the Sustainable Events Summit, looking at how organisers can reduce the negative impact of their events.

One of the key aims of the day is to give people practical actions to take back to their businesses and organisations.

We're compiling an initial list of 50 tips for organisers to consider. As a sneak preview I thought I'd share some of these with you today. While the list is designed for event managers, many of the hints and tips are also applicable to other organisations.

1. Provide walking directions to your event. The website walkit.com is a great free resource for this. You could consider adding walking directions to your offices, or providing details of public transport options available.

2. Commit to a "plain English" policy which promotes transparency and avoids buzzwords. Part of having a sustainable approach is ensuring that you're communicating clearly to the people who matter to you.

3. Take the train, not the plane - and encourage your guests or delegates to do the same. It's great that we're so close to City Airport, but if there's a more sustainable option open to you it's worth considering.

4. Choose to give your delegates useful merchandise which they will re-use. We've all been at events where the "goody bag" hasn't exactly been chock full of goodies. Isn't there something more worthwhile you could offer?

5. Use Fairtrade tea, coffee and sugar to give growers a better deal.
If you have ideas that could work to help make workplaces more sustainable, drop me a line.

- Do you or your company have an environmentally friendly product or service you'd like featured in this column? Let us know by contacting Seventeen, a sustainable alternative for your event management needs, at andrew@seventeenevents.co.uk.