MPI Toronto Chapter Blog

Reflecting on Earth Day

As you contemplate what this 40th anniversary of Earth Day means to you, remember that now more than ever we have the resources in place to change our attitudes toward—and use of—finite resources. In 1970, no one was discussing the future-facing effects of oil production, factory farming and climate change. No one was contemplating the need for corporations to assert responsibility for local communities and ecosystems.

Now, business professionals get education on CSR policy from their peers, their bosses and even their associations. Read more from the One+ PlusPoint blog post: Earth Day, Ash and WEC.

Happy Earth Day!

Are we doing enough?

"It's neither quick nor easy to turn a giant ship. Yet, the meeting and event industry is coming to terms with its environmental impact and moving forward with globally significant changes".

Great article in this month's issue of ONE+ about our industry's environmental impact within the context of the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP15) scheduled for December in Copenhagen.

Reflections on Earth Day

"Every day is Earth Day."
~Author Unknown

"We are called to assist the earth to heal her wounds and in the process heal our own -- indeed, to embrace the whole creation in all its diversity, beauty, and wonder"
~Wangari Maathai, Kenyan environmentalist, political activist, and 2004 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate

"The Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need but not every man's greed."
~Ghandi

"Take nothing but pictures. Leave nothing but footprints. Kill nothing but time."
~Motto of the Baltimore Grotto, a caving society

"There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew."
~Marshall McLuhan, 1964

"We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children."
~Native American Proverb

"There is hope if people will begin to awaken that spiritual part of themselves, that heartfelt knowledge that we are caretakers of this planet."
~Brooke Medicine Eagle

"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtfully committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
~Margaret Mead

LINKS

Earth Day Canada
http://www.earthday.ca

One Million Acts of Green
http://green.cbc.ca

City of Toronto 2009 Community Clean up Day
http://www.toronto.ca/litter/clean-up/signup.htm

NEW! Green Meetings Portal, launched by GMIC today - Earth Day 2009
http://www.sustainablemeetingsportal.com

How much can going green save?

Meeting Strategies Worldwide, an award-winning Portland-based environmental firm specializing in the meetings industry, recently published a case study of the savings achieved by one of their client events by incorporating green best practices (all figures in USD):

• $11,600: Costs avoided by providing streamlined online schedulers, demo requests and maps and not pre-mailing name badges.

• 60%: Minimum waste diversion achieved through recycling and composting programs.

• 500,000: The number of plastic bottles avoided by providing water stations instead. Typical cost for this amount of water is estimated at $1.75 million. The environmental impact of this decision translated into savings of:

- 594,000 liters of water
- 36,900 kg of carbon dioxide
- 6,750 kg of oil
- 745,000 megajoules of energy

• $135,000: Cost saved by replacing non-sustainable railroad signage with a cardboard-based alternative that was recycled.

• 45%: Percentage of banner signage that will be reused for future events. Renewable and recyclable cardboard substrates were used for some signs, which were produced at 75% less cost that previously used substrates.

Pretty impressive, eh? As organizations tighten their belts, meeting and event planners would certainly increase their strategic value to the team if they were able to clearly articulate the cost benefits for going green, especially during tough economic times – it's all about demonstrating ROI. For more on the business case for greening your meeting, check out the book Simple Steps to Green Meetings and Events by the principles of Meetings Strategies Worldwide, Amy Spatrisano, CMP and Nancy J. Wilson, CMP.

A related article definitely worth reading is Why This Downturn Has a Green Lining, a blog post by Andrew Winston, co-author of Green to Gold. It provides some answers to the question that I put forward to fellow Toronto chapter members at the January 8th Monthly Meeting "Do you think this green thing will take a back seat now that money is tight?" More on the results of that roundtable discussion in my next post.

People, Planet and Profit and the Quest for Sustainability: WEC 2008 Report

My last post talked about the UN Global Compact, and in the recently released WEC 2008 Sustainability Report, the connection is made between what it is that we do as meeting professionals and the broader goals of sustainability: "Meetings and events give practical meaning and reach to shared perspectives; they are opportunities for innovation, ideas and connections to values and principles, cultures and peoples globally.  Meeting professionals have a stunnning opportunity to touch the world through their specific medium--touch it, enhance it and change it for the benefit of our global community."

As part of MPI's sustainability journey, there has been a concerted effort to measure and report the results of the organization's CSR-related efforts at key events, starting with WEC 2008 in Montreal (as reported in the November/December 2007 issue of MEETING magazine and available on our chapter website's CSR resource page), MeetDifferent 2008 in Houston and now the WEC held this past August in Las Vegas.

I've attended numerous conference and events over the past year related to green meetings and sustainability in our industry, and time and again the issue of measurement has been raised by participants. Just like ROI, meeting professionals are eager to have tools at their disposal that help to quantify their greening initiatives and demonstrate the positive impact that it can have on their program and organization. The MeetGreen Calculator is one such tool (http://www.meetgreen.com/), and is used by MPI in this report; it was created by Meeting Strategies Worldwide, a third-party meeting management company based in Portland, OR. It tracks results over the following areas: destination, venue, accommodation, transportation, communications, food and beverage, exhibition services and the onsite office.

The report highlights the added benefit of working with a meeting venue (in this case, the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino) that already has a well established waste management program in place. The property doesn't even have recycling bins placed throughout the building since all of the sorting is conducted in the back of house. For WEC 2008, they were able to track the following results (for the convention centre only, excluding guest rooms and restaurants):

Cardboard: 9,282 lbs.

Aluminum: 315 lbs.

Plastic bottles: 326 lbs.

Glass: 600 lbs.

Carpet: 2,260 lbs.

Wood: 4,500 lbs.

Paper: 5,274 lbs.

Food: 14,400 lbs.

Signage: 5,722 lbs.

Carpet underlay: 969 lbs.

Total materials by weight, in pounds: 59,977

Total recycled, in pounds: 47,657

Total waste, in pounds: 12,320

Total % waste recycled or repurposed, in pounds: 80%

Total average materials per delegate, in pounds: 13.4

Total recycled per delegate, in pounds: 10.64

Total discarded per delegate, in pounds: 2.75

Having actual numbers like these really help to reinforce the importance of implementing sustainability initiatives within our meetings and events, since we clearly can make a significant difference by reducing our environmental and social impact. I encourage you to check out the full report not only to see our overall performance, but also to learn about some of the key initiatives that are becoming industry minimum guidelines and/or best practices. It is available for download at http://www.mpiweb.org/cms/mpiweb/mpicontent.aspx?id=20916

What is the UN Global Compact?

At the World Education Congress à la Montréal in July 2007, the MPI Board of Directors unanimously approved the signing of the United Nations Global Compact. 

You're probably wondering "what does that mean, exactly?"  The UN Global Compact is the largest corporate citizenship and sustainability initiative in the world, with over 5500 organizations from 130 countries participating. Companies that have signed on include Pfizer, Bell Canada, Microsoft, KPMG, Bombardier, Gap Inc., Hewlett-Packard and General Mills. The aim of this voluntary program is to promote learning and the exchange of best practices in support of the following ten universally accepted principles: 

Human Rights

• Principle 1: Businesses should support and respect the protection of internationally proclaimed human rights; and
• Principle 2: make sure that they are not complicit in human rights abuses.   

Labour Standards

• Principle 3: Businesses should uphold the freedom of association and the effective recognition of the right to collective bargaining;
• Principle 4: the elimination of all forms of forced and compulsory labour;
• Principle 5: the effective abolition of child labour; and
• Principle 6: the elimination of discrimination in respect of employment and occupation.   

Environment

• Principle 7: Businesses should support a precautionary approach to environmental challenges;
• Principle 8: undertake initiatives to promote greater environmental responsibility; and
• Principle 9: encourage the development and diffusion of environmentally friendly technologies.   

Anti-Corruption

• Principle 10: Businesses should work against corruption in all its forms, including extortion and bribery.

The Global Compact brings key stakeholders from the business world together with governments, civil society, labour, and the United Nations, among others, to create collaborative solutions to the most fundamental challenges facing both business and society.  Angie Pfeifer, CMM, 2007-2008 chairwoman of the MPI Board of Directors, stated that "by supporting the UN Compact, MPI continues to position itself as an industry leader and elevates the conversation for our members by informing them about Corporate Social Responsibility and the role that meetings and events professionals can play in supporting those principles for employers and clients. As more and more successful organizations focus on CSR, it is the right thing to do at the right time.”

Planning greener events may be the most obvious way that meeting professionals can support the environmental principles of the UN Global Compact, but the broader focus on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) challenges us to look at ALL of the principles and see where we can make a difference and affect positive change.

For more information, visit http://www.unglobalcompact.org.

Toronto Chapter CSR Task Force

Originally formed in November, 2007 and called the Green Task Force, our two main objectives were to assess the chapter's current environmental performance and make recommendations for improvement. As Chair of the GTF, I worked closely with our 2007/2008 VP of Communications, Natalia Weidner, and four other members of our chapter to implement our Action Plan, which consisted of five steps:

1. Adopt Chapter Environmental Policy Statement

2. Learn from others, including industry leaders and MPI Canada Inter-chapter Green Task Force

3. Conduct audit of chapter activities

4. Lead by example

5. Facilitate "greening" of our Chapter and members

In June, we presented our chapter report card to 2007/2008 Board of Directors, which was based on existing industry research and the results of our MPI Toronto Chapter audit.  The resulting recommendations for improvement were structured into three key areas:

Green Office - Best Practices for day to day activities of the MPI Toronto Office, Board of Directors and all Committees. We included a Best Practices Checklist.

Green Communications - Integrated into Chapter Marketing/Communications Plan, applicable to Publications (MEETING magazine), Public Relations (mpitoronto.org and media releases), Sponsorship (RFP), New Member Recruitment and all Chapter events.

Green Meetings - Best Practices for all Chapter events organized by the following committees: Monthly Meetings, Professional Development, Special Events, Special Education Projects, Awards & Recognition and Member Care/Recruitment. Again, we included a Best Practices Checklist as a guideline.

We also recommended that the Task Force remains in place for 2008/2009 (under the direction of the 2008/2009 VP of Communications, Catherine Paull) and oversees the implementation of these recommendations directly with each Committee Chair and provide customized solutions as required. We will also conduct a benchmark study at end of the 2008/2009 board year to determine progress and next steps.

In keeping with the mission and vision of MPI International, the Green Task Force was recently renamed the CSR Task Force. Although our recommendations are clearly leaning towards the environmental side of Corporate Social Responsibility (the area in which our chapter has the greatest opportunity for improvement), the social component cannot be ignored, and so we'll also look at ways to improve our performance in this regard as well over the coming year.

We are still looking for a few dedicated members to join our team, so if you are interested please contact Nikki at office@mpitoronto.org. We look forward to working with all of the committees in the coming year, and welcome your comments/feedback. Stay tuned for more updates on our progress here on the MPI Toronto Chapter Blog, and make sure to check our our Corporate Social Responsibility Page on the chapter website for additional resources.

WEC & CSR Efforts

I was perusing the MPI website for information on the World Education Congress (WEC) which starts next week in Las Vegas, and found a  list of all the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives that WEC, its venues, partners and suppliers are undertaking. While some of the items on the list are obvious, there are others that show real initative to make a difference.

WEC CSR Initatives:  http://www.mpiweb.org/cms/mpiweb/wec2008/wec_content.aspx?id=16982

If you are attending WEC, it will be interesting to see these items in action… 

How do 'green' initiatives impact you in the way you experience a conference? Share your thoughts or better yet, tell us what you do as an individual to support the CSR cause. (Here's to offsetting .09 tonnes of CO₂e for a one-way flight Toronto-Las Vegas).

Other green meeting resources:

• http://www.mpiweb.org/cms/mpiweb/mpicontent.aspx?id=11458
• http://www.mpiweb.org/cms/mpiweb/community/CommHome.aspx?commid=97
• http://www.greenmeetings.info/
• http://www.greeninggovernment.gc.ca/f5b1c0bc-741c-4493-b4b7-b0d56bbe6566/green_meeting_guide_07.pdf
• http://meetingsnet.com/checklistshowto/green_meetings/
• http://blog.meetingstrategiesworldwide.com/
• http://groups.google.com/group/meetgreen

If you have a resource, great idea or best practice you want to share on green meetings, post a comment.