Creating A Green Meeting

Action Plan
Is your organization and its Annual Meeting thinking of “Going Green”?

The first step to creating a Green Meeting is identifying the reasons to “go green”. Gather leaders and volunteers and brain-storm the many areas of creating sustainability throughout your meeting.

What message do you feel compelled to portray? There are many to ponder. Is it the organizations image to their delegates and within their industry with respect to the environment or could it be that leaders of the organization hold significant their own social responsibility beliefs. Others envision credibility in their marketplace.

Identify where you want the movement to begin: is it with registration materials (e.g., lanyards made from soda bottles) or with buying food and beverage from local purveyors or composting left-overs)? Or is it producing a paperless meeting and offering USB’s for uploading speaker presentations?

What do you see as your most important step forward? Engage your leadership and membership and start small and watch the effort gain momentum.

Improving one’s brand with the greening concept of their meeting can be tricky -- best to move slow and sure and engage buy-in at all levels for an eco-friendly meeting. Remember: Greening a meeting evolves over time.