Sustainable Events: The Best Way Forward

Sustainability means minimizing or eliminating the depletion of natural resources through our activities. It is a keyword in modern life, and event planning is no different. If you’ve never given much thought to creating sustainable events, potential clients will be more inclined to work with you if you make sustainability a priority. The typical conference attendee creates over four pounds of waste per day, almost three of which will end up in a landfill. Clients will feel better working with you if you’re able to avoid that.

So what changes can you make? First of all, make everything paperless. Create an event page, collect e-mail addresses, and keep all communications online. This is worth doing simply for the improved logistics; invites and confirmations are quick and streamlined, attendees can stay in contact more easily, and any required changes can be made in real time, with notice of changes immediately sent to all attendees. Clients are impressed by the efficiency and sustainability of a fully digital system. You’ll also find it’s not difficult to work around the occasional time when you need to send a physical letter or invitation.

Second, work with your client to centralize where attendees will be staying, and find a suitable location as near to them as possible. This way, attendees can more easily group in shuttles, or even walk to the event. Not only can you boast of a dramatically reduced carbon footprint, but attendees will enjoy the maximum amount of time at their event rather than in transit.

Third, recognize the parts of event planning where other people may know more about greater sustainability and ask their advice. If you’re planning the food and beverage, get an accurate guest count and talk to the caterer about minimizing leftovers. Planning ahead to donate them is also an excellent option. Ask a lighting expert about LED lighting and lower power efficiency systems. Even your AV team may have ideas on how to improve your event’s sustainability.

Finally, to bring it all together, make a comprehensive plan for putting together more sustainable events. If you’re not sure how well all of these ideas will work, change one until you’re used to the new style, then change something else. (We recommend going paperless first; it will be the easiest change for both your service and your clients.) In short order, you’ll be able to boast of planning events that are both ecologically friendly and better than ever. elm Planning is happy to help share the ways in which we host sustainable events on a regular basis! Contact us today.