Reducing Spend, Growing Green

Moving toward a more comprehensive carbon-management strategy.
By Celeste LeCompte

Last year was the time of all things green at the Consumer Electronics Association's International Consumer Electronics Show (CES): Exhibitors used recycled or environmentally preferable materials, the program featured green technology tracks and organizers boasted that trade show attendance consolidated as many as 11 separate meetings into one trip. But the biggest, greenest news of the year was that the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) also spent US$110,000 to offset 20,000 tons of carbon emissions associated with this, the world's largest computer tech show, through Carbonfund.org.

The purchase aimed to offset the carbon emissions associated with exhibit space and hotel rooms at the conference, as well as emissions from the show's shuttle buses and freight. But the CES green agenda turned out to be somewhat lackluster. One media report estimated that, if attendee travel was included, 20,000 pounds of carbon represented just 15 percent of the show's total emissions, and Consumer Reports panned many of the exhibitors' green offerings as a light improvement over previous years.

In 2009, CEA decided to pursue an alternative strategy: a full carbon footprint analysis, conducted by San Francisco-based startup Planet Metrics. For the 2009 CES conference in Las Vegas, CEA decided carbon offsets needed to be part of a far more comprehensive emissions reduction program. And, as the economic climate turned darker, CEA opted to entirely forgo its carbon-offset purchases, choosing instead to spend its green investment cash on long-term carbon management strategies.

"There was a feeling here at CEA that, given the current economy, a better strategy would be to look for ways to reduce carbon emissions first," said Jennifer Bemisderfer of CEA earlier this year.

It's an approach that more and more companies and event planners are starting to evaluate, especially as budgets shrink. The economy has put a crimp in the travel budgets of many potential attendees, and planners are responding by curtailing unnecessary expenses. For many groups, green initiatives are one potential casualty. A shift toward long-term planning and a reduced focus on carbon offsets could be just what the doctor ordered for planners who want to keep their eyes on the environment while reducing costs and boosting meeting profiles.

Taking Stock
Part of the reason carbon offsets have been a popular option for event planners is that they're easy-even for events that haven't had a strong environmental focus in the past.

Still, some event planners are redirecting funds that they once would have spent on carbon offsets toward more detailed analysis and longer-term carbon reduction strategies. While offset providers might cringe at the impact of such a shift on their business, most say they prefer to work with clients who put emissions reduction first.

"Efficiency and reduction is paramount," said Stephanie Berner, senior manager of climate and energy services for carbon offset provider 3Degrees Inc. "That's very important to all of us."

Carina Bauer, marketing and operations director for Regents Exhibitions Ltd., the U.K.-based host of IMEX, says cost is an issue with most environmental initiatives, and working with a partner to help identify big-impact issues can help manage carbon management costs in the long run.

"It can be a minefield," she said of analyzing the IMEX carbon footprint. "There can be so much to look at, you don't know where to start and where to stop."

Partners well versed in carbon assessment and management can suggest priority areas and help find cost-effective strategies that have substantial impacts on an event's carbon bottom line as well.

Like CEA, IMEX has opted to do a deep dive on its carbon footprint, rather than pursuing carbon offsets for emissions associated with its operational and programmatic decisions. In 2008, IMEX partnered with the U.K.-based Carbon Consultancy to provide a more rigorous, detailed carbon accounting strategy and to help identify opportunities for improvement.

Over time, it seems likely that more offset marketers will get into the event carbon-footprint consulting business. While 3Degrees hasn't yet had event clients seeking more detailed footprint analysis, the company recently launched a carbon footprint consulting business that aims to do just that. And Planet Metrics says that, while events won't be a core market going forward, it's currently in discussions with meeting industry partners to offer services based on its Rapid Carbon Assessment tool.

Not everyone is sold on the idea, however. The Cleantech Group, a Brighton, Mich.-based company that provides media, consulting services and events for investors and entrepreneurs, plans five events each year; two Cleantech Forums are held in North America, one in Europe and two in Asia. Each market presents different opportunities and challenges for carbon-conscious event planners.

Jeff Pinegar, events manager for the Cleantech Group, does an internal carbon audit for the organizations' events and ties specific initiatives to bottom-line benefits for the company-but a third-party audit like those provided by Planet Metrics or The Carbon Consultancy "isn't in the cards" for now.

"If I can find a way to equate that into our bottom line, I think I could make a much stronger case for it," Pinegar said.

Unlike the work he does internally, a third-party audit wouldn't necessarily translate into higher profits or lower expenses.

"That's a pretty obvious cost savings, there," he said. "I haven't been able to make that leap yet into how that would translate to more revenue."

It's a fair point. Depending on the provider, such consulting services can cost a pretty penny compared with run-of-the-mill offsets and internal emission-reduction strategies, particularly for smaller events. Planet Metrics says its services could run $10,000 to $30,000 for a small-to-medium-sized event. While larger events may have the budget to accommodate such a hefty charge, smaller events-like those put on by Cleantech Group-may not see enough ROI even over time.

Leading the Charge
For the smaller organizations, implementing green conference practices without the third-party analysis may be the way to go. Despite their different perspectives on third-party partners, both IMEX's Bauer and Cleantech Group's Pinegar say they do a lot of brainstorming about how their events impact the environment, globally and locally, and about ways to lessen that impact.

For IMEX, an annual event held in Frankfurt, Germany, Bauer says she works to grow the low-carbon claims of her conference over time.

"We talk to the venue every year and say, what can we do this year?" she said. "We get lots of ideas on the table and see what's possible."

Small efforts that started internally may be rolled out to exhibitors or attendees, expanding the impact of an initiative that worked well previously.

Pinegar points out that event planners working in less developed regions may have greater opportunities to influence their partner hotel's environmental practices-in both the short and long run-because they're starting from scratch. For instance, he says venue options are limited in India and groups have to basically take what they can get.

If a venue doesn't have the environmental programs in place that you might like, "you try and step up your efforts as much as possible."

It's a useful thing to consider, even in more-developed settings. Events that take a long-term approach to managing greenhouse gas emissions may have opportunities to work with vendor partners in inventive ways. Carbon mitigation isn't something that an event planner can tackle alone-the volume of greenhouse gases emitted depends on the entire chain of suppliers and vendors involved with putting together an event.

Currently, the Cleantech Group focuses exclusively on environmental practices for its own events. They range from the standard green conference activities-substituting pitchers for bottled water, ensuring that the hotel offers reduced laundry services to conserve water and energy-to more complex options that involve suppliers and strategic planning, such as encouraging use of locally sourced food and beverages, reusable signage on environmentally preferable materials and more. While Pinegar says he's not been focused on carbon management, most of the choices he's made have carbon benefits, both for the event itself and along its supply chain.

Pinegar says he's also considered ways to use the company's conferences as consulting opportunities. The Cleantech Group already offers a program called "Cleantech Accelerator," which helps companies find suppliers with environmentally preferable products and practices. It's a for-profit program, but Pinegar says he's interested in finding ways to offer similar support to event venues where Cleantech Forums are held, ensuring that any environmental practices adopted for the event were part of a longer-term shift towards green hotel management at the venue.

Community Reinvestment
Looking beyond the venue itself, many events, particularly in a time of economic hardship, are focused on providing positive benefits to local communities. Carbon offset providers, despite their best efforts, typically aren't able to offer high-quality carbon offsets from small, local projects. When event planners purchase carbon offsets, they are sometimes given the option to specify the source of those offsets, by geographic location and type of offset (wind, solar, biomass, geothermal, small hydro, forestry). However, most of the available projects are large-scale renewable energy projects far from the local communities in which events are held.

For planners hoping to localize their carbon footprint reduction activities, those projects may have limited appeal. But Berner says 3Degrees hasn't purchased credits from any small-scale offset projects, in part because large-scale projects offer more tangible accreditation than community-based projects.

"That's not to say that we haven't looked very hard," she's quick to point out. "But the challenge is finding a reasonable price point and a standard for quality."

For event planners willing to forego accreditation and formal offsets, there may be additional opportunities to help finance, install or otherwise support local renewable energy projects (or otherwise reduce carbon) in their host communities. For now, it's largely unexplored territory. One organization that has found ways to incorporate local, renewable energy into its program is the American Solar Energy Society (ASES).

ASES has partnered with the Bonneville Environmental Foundation's (BEF) Solar 4R Schools program to offer solar installation workshops and demonstrations as part of its annual conference program on several occasions. In 2007, ASES's Women in Solar group worked with Solar 4R Schools and Cleveland-based solar installer RePower Solutions to erect a solar-electric system at a high school.

While the project may not have offset the entire carbon footprint of the school, Michele Martin, climate business group sales rep for BEF, says such projects have additional benefits that go beyond one-to-one carbon accounting.

"There's also the intrinsic value of reaching out to the community about the message of renewable energy," she said.

For ASES, the cost of the project fits nicely into program expenses, as well as its solar market development mission.

Organizations such as BEF may be ideal partners for entrepreneurial event planners willing to take on a lot of legwork to find interesting local opportunities. While BEF offers a range of traditional carbon offsets, Martin says the organization is open to helping partners develop or support other local activities.

"Depending upon the size and scope of the event, we can put into play some kind of reinvestment opportunities."

In addition to the Solar 4R Schools program, Martin says BEF can help partners find existing projects that will provide additional benefits-for example, creating educational materials or an online monitoring system for a community-based solar project.

Small is Beautiful
When it comes down to it, there are many opportunities for smaller events to spend money that they might have invested in carbon offsets on additional projects, even at a smaller scale-but they're going to take a little more work.

For a one-day event with just a few hundred attendees, carbon offsets can cost as little as $500, depending on how far-flung the audience is. In that price range, planners may be facing more modest budgets with which to explore carbon offset alternatives. Investing in local projects, with the help of nonprofits and community partners, can stretch those dollars further.

Energy-efficiency projects are one opportunity event planners utilize to go beyond traditional offsets. Typically, energy-efficiency projects are challenging for offset providers. Because there's typically a strong ROI for large energy-efficiency projects, they usually don't qualify as credible offsets (which, by definition, are projects that require additional funding to become feasible). But small-scale efficiency projects may be good candidates for small-event organizers.

Low-income home weatherization services are one example. Weatherization programs help seal drafts; insulate doors, windows and water heaters; and provide other energy-efficiency improvements to help reduce the percentage of incomes families spend on energy bills. In the U.S., for example, homes spend about 5 percent of monthly budgets on utilities; low-income families spend disproportionately more-about 19.5 percent, according the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

The DOE also reports that its weatherization activities can cut heating bills by about 32 percent ($358 per year). At the community scale, DOE's Weatherization Assistance Program Technical Assistance Center estimates that its programs have a net energy benefit of $1.65 for every $1 spent. Donating money to the program can have long-term impacts, both environmentally and economically.

At the local level, nonprofits may be engaged in similar activities. While volunteer- and donation-driven programs don't provide the sort of thorough, contractor-intensive insulation activities that federally supported programs do, they provide other benefits, and other opportunities for event attendees to engage with the local community. Organizations such as Community Energy Project, People Working Collaboratively and The Sustainability Institute all accept monetary and time donations for weatherization.

Weatherization is just one example, however. In the U.S., national organizations such as the United Way can help planners find unique local opportunities to make community impacts with energy or environmental benefits. Still, most planners who have been working on alternative green ways to give back to host communities say it takes a little creativity and a little awareness.

Cleantech Group's Pinegar says he's constantly gathering inspiration and is considering having Cleantech Forum attendees bring old blue jeans for recycling into low-cost, non-toxic insulation. The project would have two-fold carbon benefits, in terms of both waste reduction (denim that's not discarded) and insulating homes.

While it's not likely that those benefits would be easily quantified into an offset-like number, its the kind of creative thinking that will best serve event planners who want to provide cost-effective, carbon-conscious events for their attendees.

CELESTE LECOMPTE is a freelance environmental business writer.