Meeting Professionals International, the premier global association community for meeting and event professionals, believes in the unequalled power of events and human connections to advance organizational objectives.

Sustainability

Objectives

With your help, we will be developing our sustainability objectives for the event. This allows you, as a stakeholder, to engage with us to identify your issues and concerns about sustainability. We will then consider these when finalizing the objectives for the event.

If you are a delegate, a supplier, a sponsor/partner, a volunteer, speaker or just an interested sustainable event professional, we encourage you to take 5 minutes and give us your feedback. To give us your feedback, please click here.

Environment

At all of our major conferences, we consider the eight areas of “green meetings” as defined by the Convention Industry Council. These include: destination selection, transportation, venues, accommodation, food and beverage, communications, on-site operations and exhibitions. For sustainability case studies of our past events, go to www.mpiweb.org/sustainability.  

Community Project

Date: Sunday, 28 February 2010
Place: “Montes de Malaga“ (Malaga Mountains) - Natural Park
Time: 11.00-16.00 (Bus departs at 11.00)

This year we have a new and improved project offering you a great opportunity to give back to the Malaga community whilst enjoying the green surroundings of the city and networking with your other responsible peers.
Newly scheduled on the Sunday prior to the full event kick-off, the project only costs a symbolic 10 Euros* donation and will include lunch.

The project is focused on the replacement of non-native trees in the natural park “Montes de Malaga“ (Malaga Mountains) in order to bring the parkland back to it’s natural state and reduce wildfire risk . Located 800 m above the sea level we’ll be working to plant trees and learning about the park whilst enjoying spectacular views of the city, an event not to miss! View the full presentation of CSR Project Malaga here. 
*Price doesn't include tax

We understand it is important to provide our community with sessions on sustainable events. Please check back soon for the sustainable event education program.

Carbon Offset

Our carbon offset project for MPI events is a windmill Power Plant located in Devarkulam (India). Beyond positive impact on climate, this project provides the following sustainable development benefits:

• Wind energy for generating electricity instead of fuel based power plants,
• Alleviation of poverty by establishing direct and indirect benefits through employment generation
• Improved economic activities by strengthening of local grid of the state electricity utility
• Development of road network and improvement of electricity quality, frequency and availability as the electricity is fed into a deficit grid.
• Investment of about INR 260 million to a developing region

Visit the project webpage here.

BS 8901

We have incorporated the principles of the first sustainable event standard, British Standard 8901, into how we work. This includes planning for the event, implementation of the event on-site, and a post-event review process that allows us to learn from our successes and challenges and incorporate changes into our next event. For a BS 8901 case study on the first MPI event to attain third-party certification, please click here. For more sustainability case studies of our past events, please click here.

Event Objectives

• To be financially sustainable
  • We will meet our budgeted event goals based on 500 total delegates
• To educate our community about sustainability in the meetings and events profession.
  • We will offer a minimum of 4 education sessions on sustainability in the meetings industry February 28- March 2nd, 2010.
  • We will achieve a total attendance over all sustainability sessions of 15% of the total conference attendance
  • We will achieve an average satisfaction score of 4.5 out of 6 for all sustainability sessions at EMEC.
  • We will create a case study of the event, to be published no later than 1st June, 2010.
• To leave a social legacy in the community of Malaga
  • We will implement a community service project where we reforest indigenous trees to Malaga’s local national park with at least 5% delegates participating
• To promote the recognition of the impact of business events on our environment
  • We will offer a carbon offset to attendees, achieving a participation rate of 30% of overall paid attendance
  • We will use at least 70% local (Spanish) and/or organically sourced foods at conference meals
  • We will achieve a 65% participation rate for the linen/towel re-use program (where possible)
  • We will achieve a 70% recycling rate for waste resulting from the conference.
  • We will use 75% local suppliers for the implementation of the event

Current Commitments

Organisers

• Avoid the use of non recyclable products
• No handouts for any sessions provided by MPI- print on demand at print station
• 1 Page onsite guide printed on fsc paper, significantly reducing paper usage
• Spotme networking device
• Biodegradable Bamboo lanyards
• Biodegradable Cotton bags
• Re-usable Badge holders
• Wooden Pens
• FSC certified Notepads
• Selecting local suppliers
• Maximising use of plasma screens over temporary signage
• No gifts in rooms- on demand only
• No magazine drops in rooms

Emissions

• We have calculated that each delegate will contribute to 1.5tCO2e on average. Carbon offset has been offered with the registration allowing an individual or organization to offset the equivalent of its GHG emissions that cannot be reduced any further (“incompressible emissions”), by investing in the GHG emission reduction projects in a developing country. This mechanism enables to reduce, in a developing country, a GHG volume equivalent to the one produced by the emitting country.

Transport

• All the buses for EMEC meet the standards Euro 4 and Euro5, in order to reduce emissions up to 60%. AdBlue Technology converts emissions into water.
• We are encouraging delegates to use public transport and other collective  transport instead of private cars

Food & Beverage

• Offering local, seasonal and organic food including local juices and wines
• The catering Company will use bulk containers for water, coffee, tea, milk, sugar. Not individual packages
• Fairtrade products will be used (coffee primarily)
• No individual bottles for water for delegates will be used, paper cups with recycling points at each water foundation
• Left over food donated to a local convent who feed homeless children

Venue

• No heating used during events set up or tear down
• “Free cooling system”
• Use of High efficency bulbs, energy saving and LED
• Light Sensors in stairs, toilets and corridors
• Venue creates renewable energy with photovoltaic plant of 100 KW
• Soon to receive ISO 9001 certificate 
• Separate recycling bins for delegates to use located in all important points at venue
  • Registration
  • Conference rooms
  • Exibition floor and coffee breaks
    • Recycling points will be cleary signposted

Hotels

• Keeping the heating at 23º C  temperature in hotels and venues
• Have been asked to where possible:
• Instruct HOTEL housekeeping staff to shut blinds/curtains when guest rooms are vacant. 
• Provide a linens/towel reuse program in guest rooms
• Provide a recycling programme
• Provide clearly marked and appropriate recycling containers in common areas including lobby and HOTEL guest rooms unless HOTEL sorts and recycles recycled items back of the house.
• Instruct the HOTEL housekeeping staff to not replace guest room bathroom amenities (soap, body wash, shampoo, conditioner, body lotion, mouth wash, etc.) daily unless they are gone.
• Use environmentally responsible cleaning products for carpets, floors, kitchens and bathrooms (minimum 50% of all cleaning products must be environmentally responsible)
• Provide number of MPI guests participating in the linens/soft goods reuse program
• Provide Number of MPI guests participating in guest room recycling program (if recycling bins available in the guest rooms).
• Provide Recycling Weight/amounts for Glass containers, aluminium and steel cans, plastic bottles, table coverings, pallets, paper (newspaper, cardboard and other office paper)
  waste by weight for: landfill (non-recyclable materials)

Other suppliers

• Hostesses supporting EMEC have been trained by a local programme focussed on social and labour integration for the gypsy ethnic group in Málaga.

CSR Activity

• 35 delegates are to reforest the Natural Park “Montes de Málaga”by planting autochthonous wiped out species and contribute to reduce the fire risk.
• Biodegradable raincoats will be provided made from potatoes with seeds inside, non event branded to allow re-use