COP15 Prompts Global Effort, Achieves Eco Standard
Last week, the COP15 in Copenhagen received its certification as compliant with BS8901 for sustainable event management. Countries participating in the event agreed to significant emission reductions and to financial aid to kickstart action in the developing world. The Copenhagen Accord specifies that industrialized countries will commit to implement, individually or jointly, quantified economy-wide 2020 emissions targets, to be listed in the accord before Jan. 31.
Achieving the BS8901 certification was an effort by the Denmark government to prove its commitment to environmental sustainability. Event management company MCI guided the certification process, working alongside the COP15 planning team.
"This event has become a benchmark for the meetings industry and shows how events can and should be run following sustainability principles that save money, increase performance and increase client satisfaction," said Guy Bigwood, group sustainability director for MCI and lead consultant on the project.
In an ongoing effort to transform the global meeting industry, MCI, pharmaceutical comapny Novo Nordisk and several local and national agencies are collaborating to produce a Copenhagen Sustainable Meetings Protocol, an umbrella framework that will capture key learnings and experiences from COP15 in order for others to organize large, complex meetings in a sustainable way. When released in March, it will integrate local and international sustainability initiatives, standards, systems and certification programs.
“We worked hard to be architects of an effective, flexible sustainability management system which engaged stakeholders throughout the community. The result is not only the hard won certification of our event management system, but a more sustainable Copenhagen, a city that can now claim 53 percent of all hotel rooms as third-party ecocertified, a state of the art public transportation system and affordable access to organic and sustainable foods," said Jan-Christoph Napierski, head of sustainability for COP15.