Greening: Doing More for Less
By Stephanie Corbin -- Tradeshow Week, 1/12/2009
When people talk about greening in the meetings and convention industry, the topic usually is hand-in-hand with another one – the cost of doing so.
That's no surprise when some greening features do cost a little more than their traditional counterparts.
Until now, the extra charges haven't kept the trend from spreading, with more and more meetings and conventions opting to green the events. But with the United States in an official recession, the same planners who previously had greening on the forefront of their minds now are looking to save money and make their events affordable, said Deborah Sexton, president and CEO of the Professional Convention Management Assn.
“When we reached out recently through education to talk to many of our members about what's the most pressing thing (they're facing), ... not one person mentioned greening,” she added. “Which last year, ... without the economy as a challenge, ... greening was No. 1. So that's problematic.”
However, there are plenty of greening ideas that don't carry an additional cost for planners, such as switching from bottled water to water stations.
“Here's my concern: I think with the economy the way it is today, there is a huge number of people out there who believe being socially responsible, putting on green meetings, is more costly and more expensive than what they're doing today,” Sexton said. “So I'm afraid ... that they will push this to the side.”
So, what green options are available to conventions and meetings that cost the same – or less – than the traditional ways?
“A piece of paper is a white flag of inefficiency,” said Corbin Ball, president of Corbin Ball Associates. “There are different ways of promoting, but they don't use paper.”
Ball, a meetings technology consultant, had several suggestions for eliminating paper from meetings – thereby lessening the carbon footprint of the event and saving printing and paper costs:
- blogs, podcasts and viral techniques to market the event
- electronic exhibitor kits if the event has a tradeshow component
- on-demand printing stations
- mobile phones for polling and networking
“You have to know your audience,” he added. “This isn't for every audience.”
Ball wasn't the only one to suggest printing alternatives as a sustainable option that also is a cost-saving measure.
Carol Ingersoll, GES Exposition Services vice president of national accounts, said using a local printing company at the convention location will save shipping costs.
She also recommends putting what would be printed on a branded memory stick, instead of printing it out. Ingersoll said she recently priced it, and if 1,000 are bought, they're each about $5.
“It's cheaper than printing,” she added.
Ingersoll and Ellen Beckert, Freeman's corporate director of marketing and communications, both said carpeting entry areas and main aisles of an exhibit hall is less expensive than carpeting wall-to-wall and reduces the amount of waste from a show.
Freeman and GES also offer recyclable carpet options that carry the same pricing structure as previous options.
“There are many things that can be done to reduce, recycle and reuse without costing any more and perhaps even save money,” Beckert said. “Often, we all continue to just do things at an event year after year because we have always done it. Now is a perfect time to look at each area of the show and evaluate whether it is still providing value to attendees or can be reduced or even eliminated.”
Other areas the GSCs recommended waste reduction are signage – sourcing graphics locally and having signage that can be reused for several years, recycling post-event waste and donating items to charities in the areas where the events are held.
But, as Ball points out in an article, “45 Ways to Use Technology to Green Meetings,” available on his company's Web site, technology also is an easy way to make an event more sustainable.
One of the companies Ball recommends, Certain Software, recently has started promoting its products as green, said Rick Borry, Certain's chief software architect. Certain has software for online registration, event management, continuing education and membership management.
Borry said if he had pitched the products as sustainable five years ago, people wouldn't have cared about that aspect, even though Certain was inherently green then, too.
Three overall reasons exist for interest in the software, he added:
- It adds to the attendees' and exhibitors' experiences.
- It increases planners' efficiency.
- It reduces waste.
“It seems to me ... that people are now looking at the third reason more,” Borry said. “We market to all three major reasons.”
The software eliminates paper, allowing users to generate reports online and distribute them through e-mail, he added. The content also is stored on central servers, conserving energy because clients don't need to host the servers and equipment internally.
In addition to using technology to eliminate paper, Ball stressed simple ways to green that make economic sense, like buying locally and reducing amounts of products.
“There's confusion out there on how to continue to do the right thing,” Sexton said. “And frankly, I think we just have to continue to try.”
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