Mr. Wood

Eco-Friendly Practices

Going Green: Meeting Planners Are Looking for More

By Christopher Wood, Director of Social Responsibility , Convene Green Alliance

Meeting planners are upping the ante. To capture additional business, hotel executives must pay attention to their increasingly sophisticated green requirements, particularly in light of recent developments in three areas.

First, more associations are adopting eco-friendly meeting practices. A recent survey by the American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) indicates that 68 percent of associations are using eco-friendly meeting practices, a 21 percent growth over the number reporting four years earlier. An additional 11 percent expect to begin these practices during the coming year.

Second, membership in organizations dedicated to advancing green meetings is burgeoning. The ASAE Convene Green Alliance (CGA) recently passed the 1,000-member mark and is growing rapidly. CGA is dedicated to advancing green meetings and leading the dialogue about ways to improve environmental sustainability and community service at events and conferences.

Third, new standards that will significantly impact green meetings are close to being released, and planners are eager to use the forthcoming standards to raise the bar on their green meeting practices.

Along with this swelling of interest, meeting planners have become more sophisticated in their requests that hotels support their green meeting objectives. They are looking for hotels with menus that feature locally sourced foods and that have adopted energy efficiencies in both guest rooms and meeting spaces. They want to work with hotels that offer options for energy offsets, adopt sophisticated recycling programs, and offer meeting participants opportunities to work with non-profit agencies to leave behind something of value to the local community.

Transition to Sustainable Food & Beverage

At CGA, we’re hearing that menus that feature locally sourced foods are increasingly important to meeting planners. As of July 2011, about 55 percent of CGA members report they already insist on sustainable menus—and are strengthening their definitions of what that actually means. Another 15 percent are planning greener menus within a year. So-called FLOSS (fresh, local, organic, sustainable, and seasonal) menus are gaining in popularity, and hotel leaders such as Fairmont and Marriott International are listening.

Such menus allow meeting planners to support local economies, offer delicious dining options, and avoid the costs and the environmental harm of transporting foods from distant places. Thus, hotel executives should be prepared when meeting planners begin asking more questions about where the meat and poultry come from and whether the fish was caught using sustainable methods. Healthy snack platters such as nuts, popcorn, local cheeses, dried fruits, energy bars, trail mix, yogurt parfaits, or dark chocolate pieces also are often preferred to less healthy and more ecologically harmful options.

Hotels should also partner with local farmers and other producers and then tell their stories on menus, in buffet signage, and on their websites and mobile applications. Storytelling about the sources of meal ingredients – from local pasta makers to bakers to farmers to vintners – can be powerful and pleasurable to guests, while also a positive for the local economy.

For instance, top restaurants and hotels in Pittsburgh such as Six Penn Kitchen, Bella Sera, and Hyatt purchase lettuce from Milestone, a nonprofit mental health center that provides work opportunities for its clients via its hydroponic greenhouse. In response to consumer interest in knowing where and how their food was raised or produced, planners are keen to offer attendees local food, beverages, and related stories to showcase unique cuisine, create conversations at meals, ensure freshness and quality, and lower costs.

Hotels should also consider adopting a program like the Monterey Bay Aquarium's Sensible Seafood program, which has a national following among many hotels and restaurants eager to assure consumers that fish and shellfish dishes are not harming populations and are being fished in sustainable ways. Rooftop and onsite gardens also have become increasingly common at hotels, and they can save money and add quality to your restaurants’ menus. Onsite beehives, which are slowly catching on, might be a good idea for your property, too.

In addition, meeting planners are tuning into what the hotels are doing with food scraps. Hotels engaged in composting programs are catching the eye of those seeking to minimize the carbon footprint of their meetings. Properties, such as the Embassy Suites Lake Tahoe Hotel & Ski Resort, that can then demonstrate that the compost generated is later used in their hotel’s rooftop gardens or for public gardens or at local farms, can help demonstrate to planners that good waste management is important to the company.

Reduce Energy Consumption

Meeting planners want to reduce energy consumption during their meetings. It used to be that “room-ready” meant that when hotel guests opened their guest room door, they found the lights on and the room temperature just about right. The U.S. Green Building Council and others are moving in a different direction, preferring that hotels save the energy required to keep the lights on and temperatures comfortable when no one is in the room. As a result, planners on site tours are noticing occupancy sensors, energy-efficient lighting, and heat-reflecting window skins in guest rooms.

Another energy efficiency measure that meeting planners have come to expect is the linen reuse program. But now they also are looking for incentives to motivate attendees to participate. For example, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association says that when its attendees at a recent meeting were offered a linen reuse option with a $5 coffee card reward for participation, 100 percent of attendees in the room block took advantage of the program.

At the same time, meeting planners are watching to see whether established linen reuse programs are truly operational. Some see the need for increased education of hotel staff to assure that when guests opt in, they see the staff properly execute it. They also stress the importance of asking guests directly about participating in the linen reuse program at check-in and communicating its benefits at on signage during the guest’s stay.

Adopt an Emission Offset Program

Meeting planners are looking for reasonable ways to provide greenhouse gas offset programs that let guests offset emissions from energy used during their stay. Marriott International, for example, offers guests an option to offset their entire stay for $10, which goes toward supporting a rainforest reserve.

Some hotels provide greenhouse gas offsetting in their meeting packages, either as a value-added or as a complimentary incentive. They then may plant trees locally or donate to Carbonfund.org, NativeEnergy, American Forests, or another popular offsetting organization. Last year, the International Dairy Foods Association offset the carbon footprint of a symposium by supporting an innovative dairy farm methane project of Carbonfund.org.

Push Recycling 2.0 Opportunities

Recycling remains at the top of the list for most meeting planners. Enabling attendees to individually support eco-friendly initiatives is critical. In addition to linen reuse programs and low flush/half flush toilets, attendees want recycling available food service areas, meeting rooms, guest rooms, lobbies, entrances, and parking lots. Because recycling is happening in their homes, many guests are trained to recycle and expect to do so at the meetings they attend. Thus, organizations are routinely offering onsite recycling of cell phones, batteries, eye glasses, printer cartridges and, at least at the Virginia Beach Aquarium meeting venue, even candy wrappers and chip bags.

Partner with Nonprofits to Contribute Value to Local Communities

Hotels that have relationships with local nonprofits and community facilities are providing meeting planners with attractive new ways for attendees to engage in volunteer or philanthropic activities. Guests participate in volunteer projects such as mentoring students, tree planting, park or beach pickups, and food drives. At a recent meeting in Anaheim, CA, the American Wind Energy Association worked with a local food bank to provide volunteer opportunities for its nearly 16,000 attendees. The partnership led to the delivery of 2,600 bags of fresh produce; more than $1,200 in financial donations; 139 pounds of non-perishable food products; and 310 pounds of donated hotel toiletries and food cans.

Habitat for Humanity and Kaboom! are among the national organizations that routinely work with meeting planners to offer “legacy projects” – community service projects conducted in association with a meeting – such as building playgrounds in low-income neighborhoods. Food banks, schools, and homeless shelters are other potential hotel partners with ongoing needs that can be addressed by visiting volunteers in town for a meeting.

Numerous hotel corporate leaders such as Marriott and Loews participate in year-round staff volunteer projects,. Staff of Fairmont Pittsburgh, for instance, recently joined Grow Pittsburgh to promote development of school gardens and to give sessions on culinary and hospitality careers; its guests can stuff and donate packages of seeds and garden supplies or do other needed actions.

Highlight Your Green Initiatives

In addition to adopting some of the practices discussed above, hotel executives must highlight their green accomplishment in all of their communication vehicles.

Develop a written environmental policy for the property that is posted in places highly visible to guests or potential customers (e.g., website, lobby digital signage, elevator posters, hotel channel, guestroom information binders, a link in your auto-signature for email confirmations, a sentence and link to the hotel sustainability web page on the room key envelope, a link and brief highlights on any hotel app or Facebook page, and/or a poster with green highlights for any of your tradeshow booths).

Add a green section to the hotel’s website that is easy to find, especially in the meeting planners section. The best ones demonstrate that sustainability values and actions come from the top executives of the property; add a short video of the hotel manager explaining the "invisible to you but not to Mother Nature" green practices at the property, as well as specific, easy actions a guest can participate in at the hotel and what the resulting actual resource savings are. For example, if your linen reuse program saves 37 gallons of water per guest room each night, as it does at the Sheraton Phoenix, indicate that.

Make sure that the website is regularly updated with actual water and energy saving information from the hotel's green investments and practices. Add information about new initiatives and green goals such as the addition of indoor plants to improve air quality for guests or the launch of a nonprofit partnership. Include downloadable tips for how to be a green traveler and green meeting planner. Guest polls, photos, quotes, innovations, and even games can go far to create a positive impression of the property.

Communicate your sustainability values from the moment a guest arrives. Train staff to ask during check-in if the guest wants to participate in the linen reuse program and identify any incentives, such as Starwood’s extra Starpoints. for doing so.

Develop a communication package for use by meeting planners. Meeting planners know the importance of communicating about the efforts taken to make their meetings environmentally sustainable. Many use their websites and conference program to feature their host hotels’ green initiatives, identifying energy efficiencies, waste reduction measures, use of locally sourced foods, and more. A welcome letter from the hotel’s general manager spotlighting green initiatives also can help attendees see what might not be readily visible.

The American Institute of Architects says the welcome letter, coupled with easily understood facts and figures about the hotel’s environmentally sustainable measures, can be especially useful in educating attendees about what’s going on behind the scenes. Examine the value of an internal "green team" that could help focus sustainability priorities, self-audit what already is occurring at your facility, identify opportunities to use sustainability to save money and build brand value, and engage staff. Ensure that sustainability practices and expectations are clearly explained in staff training and materials; regularly place the issue on staff agendas; and share progress toward green goals.

Stay Ahead of the Green Curve

Innovation is happening fast in the green hotel field. Hotel executives must stay on top of current developments and anticipate future ones: On-street solar-powered trash compactors, machines that transform food scraps into compost in a day or two, water recapture systems that irrigate landscaping, geothermal heating or cooling systems, smartphone-driven room locks, branded soap made from the tallow of meat leftovers, and "living" salad bars are just some of these examples. Keep abreast of these rapid changes by monitoring trade publications.

Green Meeting Standards

The meetings industry has been working to develop standards for green meetings for the past several years. The forthcoming green meeting standards are the product of a partnership among the Convention Industry Council (CIC) Accepted Practices Exchange (APEX) on Green Meetings and Event Practices, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Green Meeting Industry Council (GMIC).

The suite of standards, comprising nine individual "sector" standards, covers all facets of event planning and management: Accommodations, Audio-Visual, Communication & Marketing, Destinations, Exhibits, Food & Beverage, Meeting Venue, On-Site Office, and Transportation. Hundreds of meeting planners and suppliers have worked together with environmental experts to draft the standards. The process also has involved review by ASTM International, a globally respected standards organization that develops and publishes voluntary standards. By submitting the standards to ASTM for approval, they will become accredited standards.

As of mid-August 2011, eight of the nine draft standards had completed the review process by their respective ASTM committee. For those eight standards, this marks the completion of the consensus process for the development of the standards and clears them for final approval and ratification as official ASTM Standards.

Christopher Wood currently serves ASAE as the Director of Social Responsibility and ASAE Convene Green Alliance. As Director of Social Responsibility, Mr. Wood, along with iCohere and David Cooperrider, Ph.D., launched ASAE’s Social Responsibility Initiative in 2007, followed by the groundbreaking Global Summit on Social Responsibility in April 2008. The first-of-its-kind Global Summit connected more than 800 ASAE stakeholders via face-to-face meetings in Washington, DC and 19 connected locations around the world and online to co-create a social responsibility agenda for the future of the association profession. Mr. Wood can be contacted at 202-326-9530 or cwood@asaecenter.org Extended Bio...

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