Plan Your Meetings

Green meetings step No. 3: Establishing and tracking metrics

Congratulations, you have committed to planning your meetings and events in a more sustainable way! You have gained support from your executives and board members, and communicated your goals and expectations with vendors and attendees, implementing sustainable practices. What is next you may ask? Metrics!

Metrics are the method of measuring an event’s impact on the environment. Energy consumption, waste diversion, and an event’s carbon footprint are three basic metrics used to measure an event and create an eco-audit.

Because each aspect of measurement can include several layers, it is important to determine the depth of information you wish to examine prior to the event. For example, when looking at the event’s energy consumption, do you only want to look at the venue’s energy use, or do you want to include the amount of energy used by exhibitors, catering, off-site venues, transportation shuttles and the production company? A venue’s electric or engineering department should be able to estimate energy use based on contracted space and length of event. The ability to provide more data may vary from venue to venue. Ask your venue contact and suppliers, if needed, to help you gather this information. Once this is determined, you may then decide to purchase renewable energy offsets for all or part of the event’s energy consumption.

Waste diversion is another essential metric to track when establishing sustainable practices. This also is the metric attendees and meeting stakeholders most often ask about. As we all know, events and meetings produce large amounts of waste. Therefore, if you want to divert waste from landfills, having a recycling and/or composting element at your event is crucial. In order to isolate and measure your event’s waste from other events at the venue, it is necessary to either contract separate waste compactors or develop methods of weighing each bag your event produces. Coordinate with each venue to establish the most effective method of measurement.

A third metric to track is an event’s carbon footprint. There are several calculators developed to assist with determining environmental impact. Visit Denver, formerly the Denver Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, recently launched a carbon calculator on their Web site. This calculator is free and available for anyone’s use. Planners can use carbon calculators to determine the carbon footprint of an overall event. Delegates can use them to calculate their individual carbon footprint, based on how far they are traveling to the event, etc. Armed with this information, planners and attendees can choose to purchase carbon offsets equal to their carbon output, either through the site or a program of their choice.

Once you have determined the metrics for each of these areas, put them in an eco-audit spreadsheet you can use to evaluate and establish goals for future events. Additional measurements may be taken, based on the goals and intentions of the event and/or planner. For example, planners can track water consumption, an event’s economic impact on the local community, the benefits of community outreach programs and so on.

It is easy to feel overwhelmed when you are getting started, so take things step by step. Avoid trying to implement several new practices at once. Instead, view the process as an ever-evolving one. Introduce new elements of sustainability at each conference. If a certain practice was unsuccessful or unpopular, look at it as a learning opportunity, and remove or modify it next time. The important thing is that you, as a planner, are making an important commitment, tracking your efforts and making goals for the future. Together, as an industry, we are redefining what it means to produce green meeting and events.

Lindsay Smith is the Sustainability Program Manager for Denver’s Colorado Convention Center and a member of the Green Meeting Industry Council.