What Are The Top Three Ways To Make An Event Eco-Friendly?
With the Vancouver Winter Olympics taking place (and all the buzz around how green they are), we’ve seen a myriad of eco-friendly events happening around the city. But how do you make an event eco-friendly?
Here’s some of our thoughts on this topic…
When deciding on the event’s location, pick a place close to public transit and bike lanes. If this isn’t possible, facilitate car sharing: it’s a great way to reduce emissions, save money and get to know some of the guests attending the same event.
If you’re serving food or drinks at the event, why not going for organic, local suppliers? It’s amazing how many eco-friendly goodies you can find. For our Green Launch party, we served food from organic farms just out of Vancouver, and were even able to find organic, local wine and ethical coffee! This is a great talking point and it will definitely go a long way to promote your event. And, obviously, paper and plastic cutlery are out of the question.
If you want to take this one step further, you can offset the remaining carbon emissions. There are reliable carbon offset providers out there, and some are even local. Plus, by offsetting you’re closing the circle, ensuring your event is 100% eco-friendly and carbon-free.
One of the most important points when making an event environmentally sustainable is communicating your efforts. Promote what you’re doing, so your guests feel they’re part of something bigger than themselves – they’ll be likely to continue your work and will be more aware on how their habits impact the environment. You will also be raising the bar on event planning!
Recommended reading:
Granville Magazine Loved Kiwano’s Green Launch
Offset the carbon emissions of your marketing programs
Green consumers: biking and the green movement
Another important factor is how you get the word out. I’ve found that a mobile marketing program to announce the event and to do 1-on-1 follow up is more targeted than social media, and extremely efficient.
I’m just coming to realize how many benefits there are in partnering with firms in the community. This is not just for green purposes, although that’s a key benefit. But, mutual cooperation tends to make each event a building block to making the community a richer one as a whole, just because stronger personal and commercial ties are a natural result of it.
And as you say, letting ones attendees in on the process is just another way of welcoming them in, in addition to raising the likelihood that events which they may plan in the future uphold a lot of the same principles.
Thanks for the post!