Green Meetings Initiatives Launched at WorldEvents

Winning the Eventia 2007 Gold Award for Best Event Demonstrating CSR has had a profound effect on WorldEvents. The company has taken upon itself to build on this momentum and conduct a review of how it can provide something new and different to the market that captures the key environmental, social and commercial aspects of planning an event. The company has branded this aspect of its offer TripleImpact.

Firstly, the company believes every event should be planned to minimise its carbon footprint. To this end it has developed its own extensive event checklist so it can recommend means to ensure that sustainability is at the fore of the planning process. This factors in everything from venue selection thought to meeting materials and locally sourced produce and equipment. Commenting on this element of the initiative Martin Parry, Managing Director, said, 'We can work with clients to calculate their carbon footprint and to suggest ways to offset this. In addition we have also been liaising with the Carbon Consultancy to assess our own office based carbon footprint with a view to offsetting this via a programme of education and tree planting.'

Secondly, WorldEvents believes that it is important to put something back into the communities in which it runs events and as Martin Parry says, 'Using local suppliers is one element of this but we would not underestimate the impact and lasting impression one can create on delegates by involving them in a social programme based around the local community.' The company also believes it is important to allow its own employees to get involved in community activity around its office locations and to this end it is running a series fund raising activities for a hospice local to its UK office and in helping out in a soup kitchen near to its US office.

Thirdly, not surprisingly, WorldEvents believes every event should strive to provide a return on investment to its stakeholders. As Mark Saxby, Sales and Marketing Director said, 'We have upgraded our event briefing forms to ensure that every aspect of planning an event is aimed at delivering an ROI. A full analysis can be provided using our own event software as a means to collect and analyse event evaluation data.'

Commenting on the initiative Graham Keene, Executive Chairman, who was a Key Note speaker on the subject at the CEMA 2007 Summit at San Diego, in July, said, 'We believe this whole area is very important for the industry, - quite rightly and it should only become more important as time goes by.' We wanted to allow staff to be involved with what we are doing on this and we have been overwhelmed by the response and commitment shown'.

Click here for more information on our CSR initiatives.

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