Environmental sustainability is one of the most trending topics in the event industry. Making the right moves to offer sustainable green events is on every organizer’s list. However, managing events based on carbon offset comes with its challenges.
Green events positively impact the planet but also help the brand with event budget, brand image, and gaining more loyal customers. As per our recent survey, 53% of respondents are willing to pay more to brands that promote environment-friendly products.
Tips to Host Green Events
In order to execute more eco-friendly events, you have to understand how to select the venue, reduce travel, smartly deal with food waste, choose the appropriate menu for the event, and more. But even before all this, you have to analyze the type of event and the event organizing platform you are choosing to promote green & global campaigns through your brand event.
Following are some ways to get started with hosting green events:
1. Choose the Right Platform
Let’s get one thing straight: out of all the event types, conducting a virtual event is the best way to promote environmental sustainability.
Compared to virtual and hybrid events, in-person gatherings can be costly in terms of carbon footprints and event budget. On the other hand, virtual events have proven to be a better alternative to traditional events. Hosting events virtually does not sacrifice the event’s objective and helps organizers eliminate emissions. Therefore, choosing to execute a virtual event should be your first thought when working towards hosting green events.
A vFairs’ survey found that 50% of respondents already have a green business strategy. However, when it comes to putting those strategies into action most of businesses can not work alone. To run a successful green event, you must partner with the best virtual event platforms. With so much talk about the benefits of hosting a green event, many virtual event platforms have started working on promoting the same concept.
vFairs, one of the leading virtual, hybrid, and in-person events platforms is up and running the sustainability initiative. vFairs’ Go Green & Global campaign encourages businesses to reduce their carbon footprint and create green events.
vFairs helps our clients become Certified Global Changemakers by executing greener events and contributing to a more sustainable events industry. vFairs encourages clients to make their events more eco-friendly and rewards them for every green event they host.
If you are interested in hosting a greener event with vFairs and winning rewards, then here is how Green & Global works:
- Talk to representatives: vFairs has always been at the forefront of promoting sustainable solutions to the events industry. You can talk to the vFairs team of professionals about how you can host green events.
- Work with the team: Once you are familiar with all the possibilities of hosting green events, you are ready to implement green strategies in your virtual, hybrid, and in-person events with vFairs.
- Earn certification: Every step you take towards promoting environmental sustainability is appreciated by vFairs. You can earn the certification as Global Changemaker by hosting green events with the platform.
- Get rewarded: vFairs offers monetary awards to its clients who host greener events with the platform. You are not only making a positive change for the planet, but also favoring your business by hosting green events with vFairs.
2. Search for An Ec0-conscious Venue
Suppose you have decided to participate in the environmental sustainability trend. In that case, you have to make every decision based on it. When choosing a venue for your in-person event, make sure you look for hotels, convention centers, or other destinations that offer sustainable practices in place. Luckily, there are several platforms that want to earn business by being more eco-conscious planners.
You can also look for venues that offer green awards and certifications similar to what vFairs offers. The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a globally recognized sustainable rating system applied to building types that contributes to sustainability achievement. You can choose your venue, considering whether the building has obtained this certification.
There will be times when you find a venue that offers affordability and availability but lacks sustainable practices. Here is when you have to aim for venues that can help you with greener initiative, even if it takes you to show-off your negotiating skills into contracts, in terms of budget or putting sustainable practices in place at time of your event.
3. Minimize Transportation Needs
Even though many organizations and businesses have started opting for virtual events in order to reduce transportation needs and efforts, still many event organizers are heading back towards in-person events.
With an in-person event, you must remember that transportation expenses contribute to financial strain and carbon dioxide emissions and event footprints. Have a look at the graph below to know more:
However, the following are a few steps you can take to minimize transportation impact on your event:
- Select a venue that offers a hotel and convention hall or conference center under one roof. This will reduce the effort of your attendees jumping from one platform to another and eventually lessen the transportation cost/need.
- Try choosing a walkable convention neighborhood to improve the accessibility of the event and also to reduce transportation needs.
- Offer a shuttle service that can take attendees together to the venue. This would cut the emission that would be abundant if each attendee used their vehicle to join the event.
4. Create a Healthy and Sustainable Menu
Choosing the right menu is one of the best ways to show your audience how earnest you are towards hosting greener events.
Following are some ways to create healthy and sustainable menus for your in-person event:
- Try sourcing foods that are locally produced. This will not only save food costs but also demonstrate your support rewards for sustainable agriculture.
- Make sure you use an accurate ordering system that can carefully calculate food per person. This will help avoid ordering food while also ensuring that your attendee does not run out of it. One way to ensure accurate ordering is by using a touchscreen tablet positioned at each table where attendees can order their food digitally. It will not only eliminate the cost of printed menus but also eliminate the waste paper-based menus cause and ensure an accurate ordering system.
- You can also try creating a menu based on vegan or vegetarian options. Sourcing plant-based menus are accessible on budget, promotes a healthy lifestyle, and also reduced carbon footprints further down the process cycle.
5. Take Care of Food Waste at Your Event
Dealing with food wasting at an event can be a daunting task. However, you can do a few things to a smooth deal with the food waste at your event. Have a look at some of the suggestions:
- Try partnering with local initiatives or homeless shelters that can accept the leftover food and disperse it to those in need.
- You can also compost the waste that your event has created.
- Although this option can cost you to spend some extra dollars, it is still one of the best ways to work towards continuing environmental sustainability.
6. Use Green Energy
Depending on the size of your event, there are a bunch of options that you can tap into to conserve energy.
If you have chosen a sustainability practicing venue, it will indeed come with large windows for natural light. You can then set the event timing accordingly to start and finish your event in the daylight so that you consume as much natural light as possible.
Other ways to incorporate environmental suitability into your event planning is by doing the following:
- You can integrate solar panels into the furniture you use for your event. For instance, benches or tables can have solar panels to supply high-tech charging options with low environmental impact.
- You can also pre-install solar panels to make your event more on the green side.
- You can also set up an exercise bike or treadmill to integrate attendee-powered sustainability initiatives.
- Some bicycles and treadmills help power blenders for smoothies and cocktails for the event.
- The power pedals can also change colorful lighting in the lounge to promote a built-sensory experience for the attendees.
7. Offer Eco-Friendly Promotional Products/Gifts
Choose more earth-friendly products if you want to enlighten attendees’ event experience with promotional gifts. Several brands offer renewable sources, such as bamboo-made and cotton-made products.
You can also consider gifting products that are made from recycled materials, such as soda bottles. This way, you can add sustainable values to your event and also cut the gifting cost that comes with non-biodegradable items.
Using Tech for Sustainable Events
By now, you know that sustainability is a necessary consideration for event planners. While choosing the right event management partner can help you achieve many sustainability goals, understanding how technology can help execute a green event is also helpful. Here are some ways that sustainable technologies can get you started with creating more green events.
Tools to Measure the Environmental Impact Your Event Caused
To measure how much your event is costing environmental impact following tools can help:
Carbon Calculators: A carbon calculator is a tool that can estimate carbon footprints. The device measures greenhouse gas emissions for the time being. In this case, you can count on the vFairs carbon calculator that offers customers an easy way to determine the number of greenhouse gasses produced for a specific event based on the number of attendees.
If you want to know how much you can save by hosting green events with vFairs, check the Green & Global Emissions Calculator.
Smart Meter Reading: A smart meter is a modernized version of a standard meter reading tool used to measure electricity and gas. You can also use the smart meter reading to monitor your meter reading for the event and find how much your event contributes to the environmental impact.
Eco-Friendly Features to Enhance the Audience Event Experience
When contributing to sustainability initiatives through green events, you should maintain the attendee experience. Following are some features that can help boost attendee engagement while sticking to your sustainability goals.
Digital Check-In: One of the best ways to reduce paper waste in your event is by offering digital check-in option to your attendees. vFairs offers an easy event check-in to event planners through the vFairs mobile app. Contactless digital check-in via QR codes allows candidates to self-check in without consuming additional paper and limits physical touch.
Digital Resources: With the vFairs mobile event app, you can go paperless by uploading all vouchers and documents directly to the app. This way, your attendees at the venue no longer have to carry heavy brochures from each booth and access information through the app even when the event is over. Moreover, the digital resources feature allows event planners to download chat logs, QR codes, and more to share with various stakeholders.
Closing Thoughts
One way to ensure your business contributes to sustainability initiatives is by hosting green events. Incorporating a few sustainability practices and using the right tech for your events can turn your traditional business event into a greener event. Moreover, partnering with the right event platform that not only offers ways to run successful events but also helps promote green & global campaigns can help your business with a positive brand image, grabbing loyal customers and making a change for the planet.
