Meetings and Conferences

There was a time when the only business option was to meet face to face. In some situations this is still the preferred or most appropriate method of doing business. However, modern technology now offers us several viable alternatives. These options can reduce travel time and costs for meeting participants, reduce costs for the meeting host, and result in direct and indirect environmental benefits. Consider the following options when planning a meeting or conference, whether at your own office site or an off-site venue:

Alternatives to having a face-to-face meeting
Consider conducting the meeting as a teleconference, with on-line access to visual aids and materials (Participants log on to a designated web site with a password to view presentations.) Could the meeting or conference be conducted as a video conference, with participants in other cities meeting locally rather than traveling to your location?

What location to use?
Meeting participants will need to travel to the venue. The venue’s location will therefore have implications for the distance people will need to travel, what mode of transportation they choose and ultimately, the air emissions resulting from those choices.

If the meeting is for local-area participants, consider a venue easily accessed by public transit and local cycling infrastructure. Include transit and cycling route information with the meeting agenda and other materials circulated before the meeting. Consider including complementary transit tickets with materials mailed out prior to the meeting, and encourage people to use them. If the meeting is local, the participants may know each other. Encourage them to carpool to the meeting.

If the meeting participants will be traveling from out-of-town and staying overnight, you may choose to hold your meeting at a local hotel and book a block of rooms for your meeting participants. This will make it easier for out-of-town participants, and minimize the amount of local travel they need to do once they arrive for the meeting.

When choosing a hotel for meetings or conferences, ask to see their environmental policy. What references does the policy make to energy efficiency and solid waste reduction? How do they provide catering for meetings. (See below.)

Do they have an in-house recycling program? Select the venue with the most comprehensive environmental standards, and let them know that was an important factor in your decision process. See the Resources Section for sources of information to assist you in choosing a green hotel.

If you are using a tendering process to select a meeting or conference venue, include “green requirements” in the call for proposals, and in the final contract.

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Meeting equipment and supplies

Reduce paper use and paper waste

• Double-side all printed materials for hand-outs.
• Print-out hard copies of overhead presentation materials only on request, rather than automatically distributing to all participants.
• Conduct as much pre-meeting business a possible using email, rather than mailing out hard copies.
• Ensure any leftover hand-outs are recycled. If printed only on one side, re-use the paper for printing drafts in the office, or for fax cover sheets.
• If flip-charts are used for a small meeting, consider using reusable flip chart sheets, rather than paper. The information written can be recorded electronically and the sheets can be erased like a white board and used again.

If a white board will be used in the meeting room, use only non-toxic markers that do not emit harmful chemical fumes.

Event catering (food and beverages)

• When choosing a caterer or venue, ask them how they conduct their business; do they provide reusable dishware and linens to serve food and drinks? Request that they not use disposables for your meeting, and that condiments (e.g. milk and cream) are provided in bulk, not individual disposable containers. Ensure any off-site venue you use has a recycling program in place for empty beverage containers and other wastes.
• Try to order the food as accurately as possible for the number of meeting participants, to minimize food wastes (and your meeting costs!) Make arrangements with a local food bank to receive any leftovers. Many larger venues already have such agreements in place.
• If you are catering an on-site meeting, are there any enterprising local catering companies using low-emission vehicles to make deliveries? Support them with your business.
• Use caterers who use locally-produced food products. In addition to reducing emissions from transportation of products from far away, you will also be supporting local food producers.

Carbon neutral conference
It is virtually impossible to hold an entirely zero-emission conference or event. However, after making as many choices as possible to reduce direct and indirect emissions, an additional option is to off-set the remaining emissions that cannot be reduced through other means.

Referred to as “carbon neutral conferencing”, it is based on the concept of emission trading — specifically, the purchase of carbon credits to offset greenhouse gas emissions from conferences (e.g. air travel, ground transportation, accommodations).

It means making a financial contribution through an existing reputable organization that implements or tracks projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, paying someone else to reduce emissions that you could not. (See the Resources Section for more information).

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