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Who Are You?
If you want to learn what you or your organization can do to minimize the environmental impacts of holding meetings, click on the description below that best fits you...
MEETING PLANNER
Click on this link http://www.bluegreenmeetings.org/HostsAndPlanners/index.htm
to find the tips, tools and resources to make planning environmentally
responsible meetings easy!
MEETING SERVICE SUPPLIER
A meeting service supplier may provide any of the following services related to meetings:
Convention and Visitors Bureaus,
Accommodations,
Transportation,
Food and Beverage,
Communications and Marketing,
Meeting and Event Venues.
Click on this link http://www.bluegreenmeetings.org/Suppliers/index.htm
to find the tips, tools and resources to make supplying environmentally
responsible meeting services easy!
MEETING HOST
As the one ultimately responsible for calling for and/or funding a meeting, you are likely to act as a major decision maker over certain large aspects of the meeting, including whether a meeting is planned with the environment in mind or not. Whether you instruct or coordinate with internal meeting planners or you contract out to external meeting planners, makes a difference in your strategy for proceeding here.
Internal Meeting Planners - Here you may point your meeting planners in the direction of the Oceans Blue Foundation Green Meetings Web Tool <www.bluegreenmeetings.org/
External Meeting Planners - Here you are likely to be contracting with an individual or company external to your own through some sort of contract agreement. If work is competed, "green" language can be inserted in the solicitation. Whether it is competed or not, the final contract agreement signed between your organization and that of the meeting planners, can include "green" language requiring or giving preference to any and all attempts to green the meeting. Click here for Sample Green Contract Language used very successfully in pilot tests of the concept.
MEETING ATTENDEE
Many people may think or assume that the only ones who can green a meeting are those responsible for a meeting as a meeting host is, or those responsible for planning the meeting or supplying any of its services. Luckily this isn't the case and there are plenty of things someone who attends meetings as a speaker or participant can do to promote and expand the benefits of green meetings.
- If you are attending a green meeting, look for and take advantage
of any opportunity presented to "do the green thing." The
full environmental potential of a meeting depends on cooperative attendees!
- If you are attending a meeting that doesn't appear to be green and
doesn't mention the environment anywhere, approach the meeting hosts
and organizers and politely express your preference to attend green
meetings. Refer them to the following two web sites to get started:
http://www.epa.gov/oppt/greenmeetings/
and http://www.bluegreenmeetings.org/
.
- Each of the services used in conducting a meeting could take the initiative
to be green whether a given meeting hosts requested it or not. Seek
employees and managers within hotels, rental car companies, airlines,
convention and exhibition centers, food and beverage providers, etc.
and ask them if they have any policies or practices in place related
to the environment. Again, politely express your preference to reward
greener businesses with your business. If you want to be more specific
with your requests, review the opportunities listed in the green meetings
tool at http://www.bluegreenmeetings.org/
under both the planners and suppliers buttons.
- Promote the concept of greening meetings within your organization whether a current meeting is being planned or not. Possibly seek establishing an organizational commitment to the concept that will apply to all future meetings. Request that in-planning or future meetings be "greened" and promoted as such.
The bottom line is to talk up the concept and content of green meetings wherever you go and to whatever extent you want to take the opportunity will help further the consideration of the environment to the point of one day becoming standard practice!