With venue choice affecting the lion’s share of decisions to be made during event production, I want this portion of our Eco-friendly Events series to be on this topic.
It follows that if you’re attempting to make your events more green, you would choose a venue with a green certification. This way the majority of the effort is already done for you, leaving you more time to deal with other aspects of your planning.
As you may know, LEED is the green certification for buildings developed by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) to evaluate the environmental performance of a building and promote market transformation towards sustainable design.
While LEED is the most popular, there are other certifications a venue may hold that designate it as green.
Moving to work only with venues who have attained such a certification is easy and there are a few ways to source these venues.
First, there are many online tools to help you find venues with this certification in the area where your event will take place. Of course, you can always just ask the venue if they have their LEED certification (or equivalent that designates them as a green venue).
When considering a venue, you may want to hone in on the following subject areas to assess its sustainability policies:
Food Service Procedures:
•Little things really do make a difference. Excess packaging creates a huge burden on our landfills. Consider how much waste is created when using sugar packets, creamers, and paper napkins. Choose a venue that has replaced all of these with re-useable serving vessels and cloth napkins. Let’s be honest; it produces a better looking finished product at an event anyway.
•Did you know that 500 million straws are used and thrown away in America every single day? That statistic shows you how harmful an effect something as simple as a straw can mean for our planet. More and more venues are eliminating the use of straws for just this reason. It’s a prime example of how a seemingly insignificant detail can make a big difference.
•Inquire how menus are developed at your chosen venue. Making a sustainable choice in this area means having menus using locally-sourced food with a selection of vegetarian, organic and seasonal food.
•In an effort to reduce waste even further, some venues choose organic materials for its containers.
•Ask about the venue’s policies surrounding food disposal and waste reduction.
The best option in your quest to produce a green event is to choose a venue where all activities can be facilitated: accommodations, meetings, dining, and entertainment. Click To TweetEnergy Conservation:
•Has the venue made the energy-efficient jump from incandescent light bulbs or CFLs to LEDs? A venue with LEDs uses 70% to 90% less energy than one using CFLs as its primary lighting source.
•Are automated energy savers in place to ensure that the lights remain off when the room is not in use?
•Does the venue turn off air conditioning in rooms not being utilized?
Technologically Advanced:
•Choosing a venue that has the technology in place to facilitate electronic signage helps in your efforts to reduce some aspects of the paper waste discussed in Part 1 of this series.
Centrally Located:
•If your event venue is not accessible by public transportation, this will impact the environment due to the participants’ transportation needs. Choose a venue in close proximity to restaurants, hotels and public transit whenever possible.
•Choose a venue within walking distance to local tourist attractions to further reduce the impact of transportation output.
•Is your venue choice multi-purpose? This is by far the preferred green option as it’s the best way to eliminate most transportation requirements.
The best option in your quest to produce a green event is to choose a venue where all activities can be facilitated: accommodations, meetings, dining, and entertainment.
Is accommodation required in addition to a meeting space? If so, this is yet another area that has huge environmental ramifications. So much so that it requires its own post.
Stay tuned as I’ll be discussing that in detail toward the end of this Eco-friendly Events series.