Green Meetings Are Free

Transform the World
By Tim Sanders

TimSandersColumnLet me make this proclamation: done right, green is free.

During the 1970s, the Quality Movement, led by Japanese manufacturers, challenged companies around the world to dramatically reduce the amount of product defects to remain competitive. Many companies believed that it was too expensive to match their Japanese rivals in product quality and decided to sit on their hands and wait out this market phenomenon.

They were dead wrong. In 1980, quality guru Phillip Crosby wrote a landmark book titled Quality Is Free. In it, he explained that companies could actually save money through quality control, and re-invest it into training and new equipment. He divulged that almost half of U.S. companies' operating costs were in rework.

Today, the green movement is spreading throughout corporate businesses and associations. Meeting professionals are being asked to improve the environmental quality of conferences as part of a larger initiative to head off global warming. Many worry that it is too expensive to produce green meetings, and maybe this is just a media-driven fad that will eventually die down. It won't.

By green meeting, I mean that meeting professionals seek to reduce the environmental impact of a meeting and, at the same time, use it to increase awareness about the need for all attendees to green up their operations. Granted, some components of a green meeting are expensive and hard to implement during these tough economic times. Going green, however, has its cost-saving components (reduce and reuse) that are very viable today. When I researched my book, Saving the World at Work, I learned that companies that approach going green with waste elimination, stuff reduction and conservation saved an enormous amount of money—which could later be invested in the expensive parts of greening. In other words, it's a matter of sequencing greening efforts to first save, then to invest.

Audit meeting expenses and materials and ask yourself: Does this really produce value for the internal/external customer? Is there a less impactful way we could produce this meeting, yet maintain the same level of attendee satisfaction? You'll find that such a waste audit will uncover countless unnecessary expenses—many of them driven by legacy event policies that are now out of date. A few of these wasteful meeting investments could include the following.

  • Paper-based registration: Online registration is much cheaper, faster and saves trees.
  • Paper handouts and meeting materials: A reusable thumb drive can contain all the meeting content at a fraction of the price. Alternatively, an event Web site can host all the content digitally for download later.
  • Bottled water: Filtered water can save approximately US$50 per attendee for a three-day meeting.
  • Overnight shipping: Many organizations have what I call "Overnight Shipping Syndrome." You'll find that overnight shipping is often the result of poor planning or false urgency. It also is a money waster—costing up to five times more than ground shipping.
  • Disposable signs and dated materials: Do your signage, badges, etc., really need to have this year's date on them? Imagine how much you can save by creating organizationally but evergreen versions.
  • Unused food, swag and amenities: There might not be cost savings here, but it is certainly socially responsible to redistribute unused (but valuable) items to the local charities that are happy to do the legwork for pickup. In some cases, there might even be tax benefits from doing so.
  • Meeting locations: Are we trading familiarity for novelty by moving events from Orlando to Las Vegas to Seattle year over year? How much do we spend for site selection, advance site visitation, etc.? Sure, attendees like new scenery, but does it really add enough value for the expense? The more you come back to a location, the less you need to invest (eco or financial) in it over the long haul.

There are several other ways you could reduce or reuse, but hopefully this short list gets your mind racing. One last thought: If all else fails, and you have to invest in green meeting components by hiring recycling services or replacing traditional products with sustainable ones (recycled paper or biodegradable cups, etc.), you can find a sponsor. That's right, you can seek out a sponsor who will get promotion at the event for "Greening Up Our Meeting." This can give them a halo effect and even increase the awareness of what you are doing to help save the planet. You can also canvas around your organization to find suitable sponsors. Marketing, environmental, community affairs and sustainability are all departments likely to be interested.

Are you ready to take the plunge, shift your thinking and join me on a journey to host meetings with a whisper of a footprint and a thunderbolt of influence? All it takes is your time, imagination and innovative thinking.

TIM SANDERS is the author of Saving the World at Work: What Companies and Individuals Can Do to Go Beyond Making a Profit to Making a Difference (Doubleday, September 2008). Check out his blog at www.timsanders.com.