As the dust settles in the wake of a green meetings publicity landslide, green is becoming an expectation rather than an exception. Hotels, convention centers, DMCs, decorators, and caterers are all touting varying degrees of eco efforts in an attempt to tap steadily growing demand by clients and planners.
“Suppliers are saying they are seeing some kind of green language in RFPs,” says Amy Spatrisano, principal of Meeting Strategies
Worldwide. “Planners don’t seem to be assessing the answers, but they are asking the questions.”
Keeping Score
RFPs cover a wide range of territory, with sample requests coming from everyone from the Environmental Protection Agency to organizations like the Green Meeting Industry Council and Convene Green Alliance.
The Alliance, which describes itself as a grassroots organization of associations involved in lessening the environmental footprints of associations and the events they sponsor, offers its members a self-evaluation form, which can also be used by planners to help check various properties and their level of green.
Questions range from whether a hotel offers a management system to ensure employees are properly trained, monitored and evaluated regarding a facility’s environmental policies, to queries about whether the facility has a food waste recycling, recovery or composting program in place.
“It’s a valuable service,” says Scott Lindley, vice president of development at the Convene Green Alliance, based in Arlington, Va. “Right now, there is no widely accepted certification program out there as to what a green hotel or convention center is. Everybody is thumping their chest, saying theirs is a green city, a green hotel. We provide a score so an association can say one property rated 75 out of 100 and another 85. Planners can use that data when considering dates, rates and space.”
Experient, a meeting and event planning company in nationwide locations, is in the process of revising its own RFP it sends out during site selection, which reflects its minimum green guidelines.
“We are trying to do this in a quantifiable capacity so when hotels respond we can give a score compared to other facilities,” says Mike Smith, strategic account manager in the company’s Denver office and project leader of the Experient Green Meeting Task Force. “The idea is we would give preference to hotels based on what our clients’ event objectives are and attendee demographics.”
The RFP covers a broad scope, according to Smith, including food and beverage, recycling and waste management, energy use, and environmental purchasing. “We’re trying to make this an easy questionnaire for them and keep it as short as possible,” Smith says. “We want to be respectful to our hotel partners.”
Some suppliers offer their own version of a rating plan. The Grand Teton Lodge has its Go Green Get Green checklist that planners can choose from and offers meeting planners up to a 10 percent rebate for hosting an environmentally friendly meeting.
Planners can choose from a list of elements to integrate into their programs, and the rebate is calculated based on the number of these components they choose. Choices can be as simple as printing registration materials on recycled-content paper with soy-based inks; promoting and using biodiesel shuttle service to, from and during the conference; and offsetting the travel impacts of the meeting through carbon offset programs.
Also included is an educational program from the Grand Teton Lodge Company’s Environmental Excellence Team on simple steps attendees can take in their local communities and homes to contribute to global sustainability.
Sustainable Suggestions
The Shaw Conference Center in Edmonton, Alberta, worked with the Green Meeting Industry Council to develop its Simple Steps program, a series of strategies and services for sustainable meetings.
“I haven’t seen anything yet in an RFP specific to environmental issues,” says Cliff Higuchi, assistant general manager for the Shaw Conference Center. “But I have seen, ‘Can you summarize what the building is currently doing?’ I haven’t seen anything about not using the center if we don’t have composting. I suspect we will as the green process takes hold and standards are set up for how one goes about running a green meeting.”
Suggestions from Shaw for the pre-meeting stage include checking whether an organization can reduce paper use through a dedicated website that publicizes the event, publishing paperless conference materials and agendas, and handling delegate registration and accommodations online.
Choosing hotels within walking distance of the meeting site is another criteria, as is a local foods initiative where cuisine is shipped no more than 100 miles. Other considerations are whether bulk water is used instead of bottled water and if eco-friendly takeaway items are offered for delegates to help reduce the environmental footprint of an event.
The Shaw Conference Center’s Simple Steps program even includes the option of leaving an environmental legacy to the community, such as donating leftover equipment and supplies to an inner-city school.
Changing Requests
Shannon Schneider, director of sales and marketing at the Fairmont Washington D.C., is also seeing some change with regards to green requests.
“I think it’s continuing to evolve as it’s becoming more commonplace that organizations or companies have green initiatives in place,” Schneider says. “But I don’t think it’s to the point yet that organizations are demanding that a hotel has certain green practices in place, though it weighs on their decision.”
During the proposal and site tour process, Schneider says it is common for planners to ask what the hotel does to create an environmentally friendly meeting, but they are not yet demanding green initiatives through RFPs. Planners are not specifying exactly what green steps they need to have followed and, for the most part, green requirements are not appearing in contracts, according to Schneider.
One planner is ahead of the curve. George Gay, CEO of the First Affirmative Financial Network in Colorado, focuses on green aspects during site visits. The process includes meeting with the chef to talk about vegetarian options and locally sourced food, finding out about the facility’s recycling program, water conservation programs and more.
“When we do a selection we select based on a whole package,” Gay says. According to Gay, deal killers include not having recycling unless the destination itself is not equipped, as was the case with the company’s meeting last year in Albuquerque, which at the time did not offer a recycling program.
Gay makes clear the company’s standards and expectations, and identifies in the RFP the questions that need to be addressed, such as not wanting bottled water or all the lights on in the guest room when someone checks in.
“Every year we upgrade our proposals and our expectations,” Gay says.
Things to Know
Another seasoned green planner, Elizabeth Henderson, director of corporate social responsibility for MPI, suggests that planners need to know what they want as driven by the policy of the organization or by the outcome they want to see.
“It helps if you know what is available, what organizations and properties are offering,” Henderson says. For most hotels, the sheet and towel reuse program has become standard. Henderson suggests asking for electronic contracts, paperless check-ins and whether the facility has any certifications, such as LEED or Green Key, the Hotel Association of Canada’s ECOmmodation Rating Program.
“When you are looking at your RFP, I would say you need to know what you want to measure, what the performance expectation is; you need to have a consequence,” Henderson says.
There are a number of areas to check—convention centers, transportation companies, off-site venues, and what the destinations themselves have in place. Is the main meeting venue accessible by public transit?
She explains that the expectation is set in the RFP, but the actual contract is the follow up.
“You need to make sure you get your expectations set in the contract…what I want recycled or composted. Be very specific in your contract. Does leftover food get donated or composted? That’s how you can measure it.”
According to Lindley of Convene Green, “I think accountability and tracking results are the next step. A lot of folks are working on that.
“Everything is negotiable,” he continues. “Going to a hotel or convention center without a recycling program, you can negotiate to bring one in. You can negotiate with that facility in terms earning an association’s business. Any association has the ability to choose and has a much better position to have a green meeting.”
RFP to Contract
John Foster, an Atlanta-based attorney and council for meetings, conventions and trade shows on the planner side, helps take requirements from RFP to contract.
“Mainly my clients are big associations that land meetings at hotels and convention centers. If a hotel or convention center doesn’t have language about green efforts, it’s up to me to add them in. The key question is, what does the planner want to do by asking the hotel to be green. The hotel industry is still going through discussions over what that term means for a hotel. I’m waiting on the hotels to determine what they can and can’t do.”
Foster says he has considered copying some of the green standards set by the Florida Green Lodging Program for laying out contract requirements for a green hotel, but reconsidered.
“I’m not sure the industry is there yet to do that,” he says. “It’s micromanaging the management of the hotel. You’re telling the hotel what kind of policy to have. I’m not sure that’s up to an individual or group to do that. I’m not sure that’s where we are, making attendees reuse their soap everyday.”
Spatrisano says that many planners are not putting green initiatives in contracts yet, though Meeting Strategies Worldwide does make it a practice.
“We’re fortunate enough to have clients with large buying power,” she says. “A few years ago, getting some of this into a contract took heavy duty negotiating. That has shifted immensely. There are still a lot of planners asking but not putting requests in contracts. The challenge when you’re small is to get this negotiated. I talked to planners who don’t do citywides, and it’s harder for them. What would be great is if hotels [would] put [green initiatives] into their own contracts instead of waiting for planners to put in theirs.”
Meeting Strategies includes everything in the RFP in the contract, and then some.
Follow-through is key, but can be challenging.
Rebecca Mebane, director of conferences and meetings for the National Recycling Coalition in Washington, D.C., says even when the organization places green requirements in contracts, there can still be pushback from the facility.
Setting Standards
Consensus on what is needed is still being ironed out between the U.S. government and the convention industry.
The Convention Industry Council’s Accepted Practices Exchange (APEX) is working on establishing a set of standards for what a green meeting is, with the help of the American Society for Testing and Materials.
For now, planners can assess the level of green using calculators, such as Meeting Strategies’ Meet Green calculator or other third-party devices such as Be Green’s calculator, which can calculate the carbon emissions associated with travel to the meeting or event, allowing the group to purchase carbon offsets to counteract the emissions.
“I think what we’re seeing in the marketplace is a lot of really good intent,” says Shaw’s Higuchi. “We’re dealing with a lot of clients that would like to go green, delegates telling them it’s important. But we’re finding people don’t know what that means.”
The first thing the Shaw Center tells its client base is that they need to be very clear on their intent to green their event, and communicate with their potential exhibitors and attendees. The next step is to invite stakeholders and suppliers to ensure effective green participation on their part.
“By engaging stakeholders they can use the collective audience to look for ideas and ways to green the event,” Higuchi says. “I impress on the people, I don’t think you can win in this game all in one go. It’s similar to the changes in our own lifestyles at home. Because of the cost of energy and the awareness of our impact on planet, we’re starting to make small changes at home.”
