Aspen ZGreen Events
City of Aspen Canary Initiative & Environmental Health
December, 2007
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Much of the information contained in this publication came from the Green Meeting Guide developed by the Atlantic Region of Environment Canada in 1995 and Environment Canada’s Green Meeting Guide 2007. Information from these guides has been updated to incorporate current greening techniques and account for local factors and opportunities by the City of Aspen Environmental Health Department and Canary Initiative.
The City of Aspen is committed to hosting green events and ensuring that all environmental aspects are considered in the planning and execution of both small and large events.
CONTENTS
STEP 1: GETTING STARTED……………………………………………………….1
The Green Event Concept Why Host a Green Event Planning the Event and Your Environmental Policy Keys to a Successful Green Event Communication: Getting the Word Out Measuring your Progress
STEP 2: ORGANIZING THE EVENT………………………………………………5
Logistics: Planning and Carrying Out the Main Event Arranging Facilities Arranging Food and Beverage Services Transportation Planning Onsite Efficiency Operating a Green Office Green Procurement and Certified Products Service Suppliers Selecting a Sponsor for your Event
STEP 3: CARRYING OUT THE EVENT……………………………………………10
Opening the Meeting Running the Meeting
STEP 4: FOLLOW-UP………………………………………………………………...12
Clean-up Recognizing Efforts Publication of Proceedings Reporting on Lessons Learned Leaving an Environmental Legacy
This guide is a practical reference tool for anyone faced with the task of organizing a meeting or conference with the aim of making the event environmentally responsible. It provides information on how to incorporate environmental concerns at every stage of an event.
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STEP 1: GETTING STARTED
This manual provides a lot of information - don’t be overwhelmed! The actions described here are suggestions; it’s up to you to decide which suggestions work best for your event. If you feel you need help, have any questions or would like to be ZGreen Event certified please contact ZGreen staff at (970) 429-1831 or (970) 920-5039.
The Green Event Concept Any gathering has environmental implications. It consumes energy, produces wastes and results in air emissions such as the greenhouse gases implicated in climate change. Many of us have had the task of organizing a meeting – setting the agenda, inviting participants, arranging facilities, and ordering food and equipment. However, few meeting organizers are environmental experts. This guide was written with that in mind. It uses plain language and an easy-to-follow format to help make your meeting a green and successful event. It can be used for events ranging from small half-day meetings to large international conferences.
What is a Green Meeting? A green meeting ensures that all aspects of an event, including its location, food services, transportation and the provision of materials are approached with pollution prevention and resource reduction in mind in order to reduce its environmental impact.
Why Host a Green Event? Conserve energy, reduce waste, save money The event presents an opportunity to educate participants, organizers and suppliers about the benefits of green events. Green organizations have a positive public image. Showcasing environmental technologies can result in increased business opportunities for the exhibiting companies. Hosting a green event can stimulate an organization to institute environmental protection measures more broadly, thereby achieving even greater environmental and economic benefits. 1
Planning the Event and Your Environmental Policy Greening begins at the earliest stages of organizing an event. Your organization should start by making a clear statement of its intentions to carry out a green meeting. This policy statement need not be elaborate; it should be a clear and simple statement of your green intentions. (See box.)
Sample Environmental Policy We will address environmental considerations at every stage and include environmental factors in every decision to purchase a product or contract a service. We will minimize the meeting’s waste, water, energy consumption, and air emissions.
Keys to a Successful Green Event: Establish the green nature of the event at the outset. Be sure sponsors align with greening effort before soliciting their support Delegate responsibility for the overall greening effort and each of its components, and establish a system to monitor progress. Distribute this guide to all organizers and involved parties at the outset of the meeting planning exercise. The environmental program must be a priority at the highest levels of your organization. Senior managers should publicly commit to the greening process and make it clear to employees that the greening effort is an important part of their jobs. Consider the scale of the proposed event to determine how elaborate your greening preparations must be. The organizing committee should include a representative of the greening initiative from the outset so that environmental factors are considered throughout the project. Allocate sufficient time and resources to achieve environmental objectives. Some items are highly visible, such as the avoidance of disposable products, use of recycled materials, and presence of recycling programs. Others, such as energy management programs, may be less visible though no less important, especially as many of these can actually reduce costs. Visible elements in particular cannot be overlooked as they serve as an example to all of the participants. In the early stages of planning for a large event, consider involving community groups and schools in the environmental effort. 2
Communication: Getting the Word Out Green meetings are a relatively new phenomenon, and not all event organizers or participants may be fully aware of the concept. Thus internal and external communications are a key consideration for a successful event. Your organizing team should meet early and regularly to discuss the event's green aspects and report progress. Inform event participants of the event's green aspects. For a large-scale meeting, the public and media should be informed of the nature and importance of the environmental program through a formal public relations campaign. In addition to communicating the message, it can be helpful to have a “green” table. For larger meetings it can also be worthwhile to involve stakeholders such as local environmental, municipal and business communities early in the planning of the meeting to ensure they participate most effectively.
Green Information Table Green Tables are becoming more common for meetings and conferences. The Green table functions much like the registration table, only instead of general conference logistics and information, it provides resources on the environmental elements of the event, public transportation options, green hotels, green restaurants, tips on what attendees can do, etc. This should not replace communicating the green message at the registration table and at other times, but provides a great resource to attendees.
Your greening strategy should address procurement issues. In particular, you should inform all those involved in procuring goods and services of your greening requirements and convey your needs. A clear procurement policy will ensure that purchases reflect environmental considerations. The policy need not be elaborate, but it should summarize your organization’s commitment to green procurement. For an example of a general policy, see the box below. Distribute the policy statement to all employees, contractors, and suppliers of goods and services (e.g. hotels and catering services), and require them to adhere to it.
Sample Procurement Policy Statement This organization will give preference to products and services identified as “environmentally superior”. “Environmental superiority” will be recognized based on efficient use of energy and natural resources, potential for hazardous and solid waste reduction, and safe means of disposal. Preference will be given to products and services certified by Aspen ZGreen, Fair Trade, and Green Seal. (Include in your bid information on how your product/company is “environmentally superior”- what green practices does your company or your product employ?)
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Measuring your Progress To ensure the greening strategy stays on track, you should take some concrete measures to monitor progress, ensure accountability and report lessons learned. The intensity of this monitoring effort will depend on the scale of your event. However, the parameters that you could measure include: the amount of paper used or conserved through waste reduction measures, the amount of waste generated, including relative amounts discarded and recycled, travel modes used by meeting organizers and attendees, including percentage usage of public transport versus taxis or private vehicles, and greenhouse gas emissions produced
When you are unable to meet a requirement in a checklist, an explanation should be provided. You can record this information in the Comments section of each checklist. For future meetings, you can use the completed checklists as baseline environmental footprints to compare performance from one meeting to the next. With experience, you should see steady improvement! Others will also benefit from the lessons you have learned. For larger conferences, an external audit may be worth considering. assessment process must begin early in the planning phase so that understand your environmental goals and activities. Keep records and contracts for all transactions associated with the event for auditors. Such an independent the auditor can fully of purchases, leases, review by potential
ZGreen staff can perform a complete environmental audit for your event at a below market rate. Basic ZGreen certification is FREE!
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STEP 2: ORGANIZING THE EVENT
This section of the guide includes initial organizational tasks such as preparing invitations, securing contracts, choosing venues, and calculating emissions.
Logistics: Planning and Carrying Out the Main Event There are a number of green measures that apply to the logistics of planning and carrying out the meeting. These include using electronic means rather than printed materials for pre-meeting communications, reducing paper usage at the check-in stage, and working with presenters and participants to make their own activities more environmentally sound. Be sure to meet with every involved party, from hotel management to the catering services, to ensure that all are aware of greening requirements. Keep in close contact to address any problems as they arise.
Arranging Facilities Choose a meeting location downtown or near the airport that can be easily accessed by public transit or on foot, rather than by private vehicle or taxi. Choose accommodations that are registered ZGreen Businesses or ask your accommodation if they could arrange specific environmental practices for your parties stay. Arranging Food and Beverage Services Food and beverage consumption are potential generators of large amounts of paper, plastic and other wastes including the greenhouse gases generated through the industrial food process and transportation. This aspect of your meeting is an important area in which to apply conservation measures. It also provides a major opportunity for educating participants about means to reduce foodrelated wastes in their daily lives.
Reducing Waste The Aspen Food and Wine Classic of 2007 designated three zero waste tents where volunteers and participants were asked to recycle or compost all waste. These locations reduced their waste production by 75-80% compared with tents that were not zero waste sites
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Transportation Planning Transportation can be a significant environmental factor for many events. For major conferences, air travel in particular can be by far the largest contributor of GHG emissions. A large meeting provides the opportunity for publicly encouraging car-pooling and public transit, and a chance to demonstrate alternative transportation modes and fuels. Encourage attendees to take public transportation by providing bus passes and transit maps RFTA (Roaring Fork Transportation Authority) services many locations in the valley, and in-town shuttles are free. RFTA can be reached at (970) 925-8484 and their website is www.rfta.com Be sure to provide a map and/or information on RFTA to meeting attendees. It may be cheaper for attendees to pay a small shuttle charge than take individual taxis. Shuttles may be less stressful for attendees than finding a taxi. They are also good networking opportunity for groups of participants.
If you are providing event shuttles or transportation, be sure that the vehicles are properly maintained, have adequate air in the tires, and do not idle. This is also an excellent opportunity to showcase alternative fuel vehicles such as hybrids, electric, or other technology.
Offsetting carbon emissions: Canary Tags While significant efforts can be made to reduce emissions from ground transportation during an event, it is hard to do away with them all together and is often impossible to avoid emissions from air travel. Recognizing this, the City of Aspen created its own locally based carbon offset program: Canary Tags. Canary Tags are available for automobiles, commercial and private air travel, and event operations. To calculate your own emissions please visit www.canarytags.com. Canary Staff can help you calculate emissions for your attendees and event operations. Canary Tags is a completely transparent carbon offset program which adheres to the highest standards in regulated carbon markets. The calculators used in this program were created specifically for the Aspen area and are based on current scientific data. For more information on the program please click on the “More Info” button on the website.
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Onsite Efficiency Whether it is a recurring event, or one time only, events offer a tremendous opportunity to invest in efficiency measures for the building, campus, or home where the event occurs. Because you will be tracking the energy being used for the event anyway, getting an energy audit done on your location is a good place to start. An energy audit will provide you with your baseline energy use and will show areas where efficiency measures can be the most economically and effectively applied.
Fairmont Hotels & Resorts has found that it pays to be green: An energy audit and retrofit cost the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise $460,000. Projected savings were $461,000, but after five years, the hotel had saved over $616,000. Typical hotels use 218 gallons of water per day per occupied room. Installation of water efficient guest room fixtures, like Fairmont's fitting of tap aerators and low flow toilets, reduce water use by an average of 31%. At the Chateau Laurier, 95% of all exit lighting has been retrofitted to low wattage (15 watt) energy efficient lighting, saving 306.6 KW of electricity per year. The Chateau Laurier’s new automated shut-off programs for heating/ventilation/air conditioning are reducing energy consumption about 42,000 KW per year.
Operating a Green Office Organizing a large meeting will require office facilities and services ranging from telephones, fax machines and computers to processing reservations and producing conference materials and reports. The office provides many opportunities to reduce resource use, in particular paper, and increase recycling efforts. In addition, organizers should consider providing video or web conferencing facilities.
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Green Procurement and Certified Products There is a growing variety of products on the market which purport to be environmentally superior. When purchasing or renting products, you must evaluate suppliers’ environmental claims. For some types of products, a national or international body has established environmental standards. Examples of certifying bodies are the ZGreen program (City of Aspen), Green Seal and Scientific Certification Systems (the United States), and the European Union Eco-Labeling Program. Unfortunately, many product categories lack standards or specifications. When purchasing these, ask suppliers for information on the environmental characteristics of their product to allow a comparison with competing products.
Ideally, environmental factors should be considered for each stage of a product’s life cycle - the creation, use, and disposal of the product. In general, preferred products and suppliers: make the most efficient possible use of materials, energy and water, produce a minimum of waste, and minimize the release of harmful substances
In evaluating product suppliers’ into the environment, both within claims, it is important to understand buildings and outside. various claims such as “recyclable”, “recycled”, “biodegradable” etc. In some cases, determining which alternative is environmentally preferable will be a judgment call.
Service Suppliers It is also important to assess the environmental performance of service suppliers. This may require a bit more investigation than for product suppliers, because there are fewer standards available. Use local suppliers when possible, particularly for produce, other food products and beverages. This reduces transportation requirements and the associated environmental impacts.
Local suppliers may not always be available for more specialized products. However, by demanding environmentally responsible products, you may encourage local suppliers to begin carrying such products. This in turn will contribute to the positive environmental legacy of your meeting. ZGreen Guide
www.aspenzgreen.com
The ZGreen website lists local businesses and service suppliers that are certified for their environmental practices. Not everything is available through ZGreen Guide, but it is a good resource and place to start.
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Ask suppliers to provide supporting evidence for their claims. Also ask suppliers to provide information on the environmental appropriateness of their own operations (For example, are they ISO 14001 certified?).
Selecting a Sponsor for your Event Environmental factors should be among the criteria for selecting sponsors. Although free goods and services may be important financially, basic environmental criteria still apply, (for example, a free supply of individual bottled waters would be inappropriate). You could seek sponsors to provide recycling bins, green office equipment and supplies, recycled-content tote bags, coffee mugs (for replacing polystyrene cups), and for volunteers to sort recyclable materials or be on-site green team members, informing delegates how and where to recycle.
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STEP 3: CARRYING OUT THE EVENT
This section of the guide covers the activities taking place during the event.
Opening the Meeting Greeting guests and opening the session provides an opportunity to reinforce the meeting's green messages and encourage participants to support your environmental policy. Inform attendees of your environmental policy and the greening strategy for the event (see Step 1, Getting Started). Remind attendees to use the recycle bins and to read the labels – attendees unfamiliar with recycling will often throw trash in the recycle bins, be sure to remind everyone to check the signs. Refer attendees to the Green Information Table. (See box on pg 3.) Tell the participants what they can do as individuals to help make this a green event. (See the box on the next page for examples.) Signs or notices at the site can remind attendees of recycling facilities and other green measures. (Signs should be reusable.)
Running the Meeting The meeting session will be a busy time for organizers, but it is important to keep track of environmental issues. The day of the event also provides important opportunities to reinforce green messages. Keep the checklist handy to ensure that organizers and contractors adhere to all requirements. Have contractors’ and suppliers’ contact information handy in case you need to be in touch.
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During the meeting, remind participants of the greening requirements. This could involve making a brief statement at the opening of each day’s session, as well as occasional reminders when necessary. As part of your monitoring effort, record information on your selected monitoring parameters such as paper use and waste generated (see “Measuring Your Progress” in Step 1). Take note of any environmental problems or issues arising during the session. If you have sufficient staff or volunteers, have a designated green team on site to respond to attendees’ inquiries, identify potential problems and assist with environmental monitoring.
What meeting attendees can do:
If possible choose to stay in an eco-rated hotel (for example, see ZGreen http://www.aspenzgreen.com) Turn off any lights, TV, air conditioner or heater when you leave your hotel room for the day. Recycle your waste: bottles, cans, paper, etc. Register on-line if possible rather than printing paper copies. Bring your own reusable mug, pen and pencil. Do your sightseeing by foot or public transport. Collect business cards of presenters and have them e-mail reports and other information rather than collecting printed hand-outs. If the hotel offers this service, take the energy-saving option of not having sheets and towels changed every day. Next time if possible, participate by teleconference or videoconference rather than travelling to the event.
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STEP 4: FOLLOW-UP
This section of the guide includes clean-up, publication of proceedings, post-event auditing, and reporting on lessons learned.
Clean-up If there are items such as office supplies, goods provided by sponsors, or gifts remaining after the event, ensure that they are used and not disposed of. Have an on-site drop off for attendees to return material that can be re-used – name badge holders can easily be reused. Community groups and schools can often use supplies.
Recognizing Efforts Thank your staff and volunteers. When purchasing gifts, consider environmentallyfriendly products with recycled content, for example bags and mugs made from recycled plastic. Other gift ideas include items made by local artisans, and investing in an ecofriendly project (such as having a tree planted in a volunteer’s name). This can help to focus continued attention on environmental concerns. Your communications strategy for the event should recognize any assistance with the green aspects.
Publication of Proceedings Your conference proceedings are an opportunity to highlight the event's green aspects. To minimize the environmental cost of publishing the proceedings, consider distributing them electronically or posting them on your Web site. Reporting on Lessons Learned If you commissioned an external auditor for the event, distribute his or her report (electronically) to interested parties. Otherwise, document the results of your greening effort to provide an example for others to follow.
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Leaving an Environmental Legacy The most important legacy from a large-scale meeting may be the building of partnerships among civic, environment, business and government agencies. Encourage these groups to build on the cooperation developed through the meeting. Various infrastructure and improvements may also be a legacy of a large-scale meeting, such as energy-efficient structures, environmentally appropriate outdoor lighting and landscaping in key areas of the host city. Local hotels will also be more aware of the environmental concerns that apply to them.
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