Defining Green: What's Hype? What's Real?

The tradeshow industry may be evolving in an environmentally responsible direction, but at this stage, when anyone can claim their show is green, one question persists: What really is green anyway?

For anyone interested in sustainability, the concept of what constitutes a green show, product or service, and how this can be measured is a confusing one – until now. A process is underway to not only define green for the industry, but also to certify it.

Many believe setting a standard will hold the industry accountable for its efforts and help distinguish between who is working to be green and who is faking it for their own public relations reasons.

In a joint project, the Convention Industry Council's Accepted Practices Exchange Commission, the Green Meetings Industry Council, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the American Society for Testing and Materials, a comprehensive industry standard of what constitutes a green meeting or event may be established within the next year.

“(We thought) it would be beneficial to have a uniform articulation of environmental standards and to produce a product that people can use across the industry,” said Harry Lewis, attorney adviser in the EPA's Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics.

The initiative is called the APEX/ASTM Green Meeting and Event Standard Development. The goal is to create guidelines, with a first draft slated for fall 2008, according to APEX. From there, a third-party certification program will be developed, although logistics still remain under discussion.

Last February, the first task group meeting took place at the GMIC's Greening the Hospitality Industry Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, that brought together like-minded representatives from a wide range of industry-related groups interested in developing a standard system of sustainable industry environmental practice.

Discussions included the scope of the standard, what sides of the industry would be involved, and plans for participants to return to their respective industries and form subcommittees representing their sectors.

This collaborative effort couldn't be more timely.

Since its creation in January 2001, APEX's main purpose has been to establish standards and voluntary best practices for the meetings, convention and exhibitions industry. At its November 2007 meeting, the APEX commission recognized the need to establish a standard for green meetings and formed its APEX Green Meetings Panel to carry this out, said Terri Breining, APEX commission chairwoman and president of Concepts Worldwide.

Meanwhile, Lewis said, the EPA had developed its initial Green Meetings and Conferences procurement rule, a guide to assist agency procurement officers in considering environmental performance when buying services for meetings and conferences. These guidelines were implemented within EPA's Environmentally Preferable Purchasing program, which promotes environmental preferability in purchasing government goods and service.

The EPA wanted to expand on its first effort, as well as define acceptable performance levels for meetings and events, so it contacted the GMIC, which also had recognized a need to establish green industry guidelines, Lewis said.

A working relationship was born.

GMIC, as one of the newest members of the CIC, became the link that brought all parties together, Breining said. All three organizations recognized they were on the same page with similar intentions and a cooperative collaboration formed to establish a single national and international standard for green meetings and events.

Though the EPA is contributing its resources to help develop the standard, Lewis said, this is not an EPA regulation for the conference and tradeshow industry, but a voluntary program the EPA also hopes to adopt for government-sponsored meetings.

To help establish this standard, he added, ASTM, an accredited standards development organization the EPA works with in other areas, such as green building, will play an integral role in facilitating the process. As a government agency, the EPA is required to use the voluntary consensus method in establishing standards, Lewis said. This transparent and open process, employed by ASTM, will be integrated into the development of the green standard, he added.

According to Breining, this process will be familiar territory to APEX. The organization has consistently used ASTM's model in the development of its own standards and best practices. At this time, the logistics of how APEX and ASTM will work together, as well as who will own the standard, is under discussion, she added.

“The whole point of this is to create a definition,” Breining said, “something that serves anybody who creates events.”

Currently, the standard is in the planning stages, with the establishment of the APEX Green Meetings and Events Panel still in process, Breining said. With all of CIC's 32 member organizations in support, the panel will represent the wide scope of the meetings industry, she added.

This task force will consist of subcommittees containing representatives from different segments of the industry who will discuss, debate and identify best practices for their sectors, Breining said.

Many in the industry who are believers in sustainability and walk the talk of green are eager to see certification.

“For our industry, this has been a huge topic of discussion,” said Anna Corley, vice president of business development at Stetson Convention Services. “(Green) companies and service providers are committed to this, and they want a certification process because it will validate (what they're doing).”

This standard, and its consequent certification, follows in the footsteps of BS 8901, the British environmental standard of meetings and events, which provides criteria in planning and managing a green event. However, unlike the British version, the North American standard will define performance levels in a variety of environmental areas such as energy, water, recycling and solid waste, while measuring and holding individuals accountable for performance results, Lewis said.

BS 8901 is just one of many significant green industry documents that will be reviewed, assessed and assimilated in the creation of the standard, Breining said.

According to Tim Morris, president and CEO of EcoSystems, a standard will make it harder for companies to “greenwash,” to feed off and benefit from the misrepresentation and misunderstanding of green.

“It's going to clear things up,” he added. “It will eliminate intentional greenwashing, because everyone will have an understanding of what (green) means.”

This isn't an overnight process. According to Shawna McKinley, interim director at GMIC, establishing this standard will take time.

“Right now we're at the stage of determining what the process will be,” McKinley said. “The con is that it takes time to determine what the working agreement will be between the parties, but the pro is (arriving) at one standard we can all agree on.”

It's going to be a busy year for those involved in establishing this standard, but what will result will be a clear definition and a working method to help accelerate the greening process in the tradeshow industry.

“Everybody throws around the term green these days but no one has a definition for it,” Lewis said. “The concept is fluid ... as technology and best practices get more developed, the bar may get raised and standards may change.”