Each year, companies strive to be more eco-conscious, doing their part to be good stewards of the environment. Sustainability makes good business sense. Knowing this is an important focus for many organizations, meeting planners must remain at the forefront of implementing environmentally-friendly alternatives. Read below to find ways in which adding a touch of green to your next corporate event can go with any decor.

Tips to Make Your Meeting Green

1. Offer Recycling Options – So easy, we sometimes forget. At your next event, offer an alternative to the black trashcan with receptacles for plastics, cardboard, glass, and aluminum. It’s a unobtrusive reminder to keep a little conscious.
2. Water Bottle Alternatives – Think outside the bottle…er…box when it comes to offering water. Use glass pitchers or offer a stainless steel water vessel as a corporate gift upon their arrival and encourage its usage throughout the meeting.
3. Green Transportation – For off-site property options or airport transfers, give guests the opportunity to ride in an electric or low-emissions vehicle.
4. Walk, Don’t Ride – Another option for green transportation is to offer off-site venues that are within a couple blocks of the property and give walking tours. Two legs = zero emission.
5. Donate Uneaten Food – Food waste contributes to 3.3 billion tons of carbon dioxide each year. To this point, each event is an opportunity to give back to a local community shelter, which also eliminates your food waste footprint.
6. Eliminate Paper Waste – With smart phones, tablets, and laptops at every meeting, give the option to have digital handouts in lieu of their paper counterparts to cut down on paper waste throughout the meeting.
7. Eat Locally – Though not always an option, some hotels and restaurants keep local agro-businesses in mind for large-scale catering jobs. Because of this, ask your venue if eating locally is an option for your program.
8. Decorate Locally – Event planners can create lasting relationships with local florists and their suppliers. By choosing local growers, it helps to limit emission from transportation and encourages local ecosystem growth. In turn, this benefits air quality, pollination, and the local economy for these areas.
9. Reuse Meeting Materials – Do you use lanyards and name badges at your meetings? Then, why not offer a station where those items can be dropped off for use for a future event? Make it all the sweeter for guests to recycle old lanyards by offering a drink ticket on the last night.
10. Add a Real-time Carbon Calculator – Keep attendees engaged each step of the way with a real-time calculator showing how each decision of the event creates or diminishes the event’s carbon footprint.

Year after year, we see green sustainability as less of a trend and more of a movement. For AlliedPRA, we want to be leaders in green alternatives for our guests. To find out more about AlliedPRA, click here.