Running meetings throughout the day can take its toll on any team member. There are many benefits to hosting a variety of arrangements; the downside, however, can be that the individuals become fatigued.

Sustainable meetings refer to the number of sessions, the format, and the time to conclude these meetings. A sustainable conference focuses on reaching a viable conclusion as quickly as possible. The meeting should not occur after one another, and every member should have an adequate break to ensure they have a fresh mind going into critical discussions.

Companies will arrange as many meetings as necessary to ensure they can rapidly conclude all the problems and discussions. However, the problem is that many individuals need help focusing or thinking straight after running through too many meetings. The key is sustainable meetings.

What Does Sustainable Meeting Mean?

A sustainable meeting is a meeting that aims to include sustainable resources and technology as well as hosting the sessions in a way to ensure that the members can deliver and add value to the meeting.

There are a variety of ways for companies to host sustainable meetings. And while the focus is to reuse or create environmentally friendly methods of hosting and running a conference, the aim is to be eco-friendly throughout the company.

Tips To Know When Creating Sustainable Meetings

Following will be great tips that will enhance the company’s sustainable meetings and ensure that the entire team uses these tips as a benchmark to move toward an eco-friendly and greener environmental impact.

Get Planners and Guests Involved

The idea behind a sustainable meeting is more significant than the company itself. Thus, inviting speakers, planners, and guests to join on the journey will substantially impact the entire team.

Planners can be used to create a specific plan to move to a completely sustainable meeting environment. These individuals have the knowledge and expertise to create the perfect setting for sustainability.

Streamline Waste Management at Your Meetings

Waste management refers to how companies deal with and use waste. Many industries will use paper for documents, which will be thrown away after one use. A sustainable waste management system will provide the team with methods of reusing, recycling, or disposing of items after use. This will clean the environment and reduce the entire company’s daily waste.

Choose Sustainable Food and Beverage During the Meeting

Sustainable food refers to food production that aims to improve the environment. The company can include this in the sustainable meetings by providing healthy and prepared food within sustainable food chains. The company can provide the team with plates and cups to reduce plastic use, significantly benefiting the sustainable meeting.

The food should not only be made through a sustainable producer and system but should greatly benefit the team members. The company can create a sustainable meeting by providing high-quality and nutritious food to the entire team.

Removal of Potential Wastes From The Meeting Location

Clearing the environment of waste is an excellent way to lavish a clean and sustainable meeting. The team can identify wasters such as paper, plastic water bottles, and many other objects that can be replaced with eco-friendly placeholders within the meeting space. The waste during events can be massive.

Thus, greener events where this waste will be recycled or reused are great sustainable event tools to create a green event. An alternative is to provide food alternatives for people from the sustainable event menu. The waste of the food can be used for green event compost. 

Check Out Greening Your Meetings & Events:

Recycle at Meetings

Recycling is a handy tool that must be added to every sustainable meeting. The aim is to find all recyclable materials and items before the meeting adjourns and place them in a recycle bag. A recycling program will allow the team to identify critical recycling materials leading to an eco-friendly work environment. There are multiple recycling options with green initiatives that companies can use. These sustainable practices in the form of sets of recycling will decrease the company’s negative impact on the environment. 

Have Case Studies, Meeting Guides, Checklists, and Tip Sheets

One of the easiest methods for a company to achieve its goals is to follow another company, industry leader, or planner. The company can move forward rapidly by simply stepping in the exact steps. By using case studies, the team can evaluate the direction and steps it takes to move to where they want to be.

There will be checklists and tip sheets online to ensure that companies can achieve their goal of becoming sustainable meeting companies. The team will be asked to follow and complete the lists to ensure they move in the right direction.

Hire the Right Partners During The Meeting

Planners have the direction and tools to ensure the company can achieve its goals. This is no different from a sustainable meeting; the team can hire a planner to lead them directly to these goals.

If the company needs a pharmaceutical planner, it will hire an individual or team solely focusing on that. A planner that focuses on sustainability will be required to ensure that the team can achieve a sustainable and eco-friendly office.

What Can Conference Source Do?

Conference source takes pride in their ability to meet the customer’s needs. The team of event planners will provide the customer with all the tools and knowledge to build and plan the perfect meeting according to the customer’s goals. The team is well known for its pharmaceutical meeting planning, one of its strengths.

The team takes pride in bringing company goals to life through planning and creating quality events and planning meetings. The team can plan, promote and design sustainable events for any company.

How To Promote Sustainable Meetings and Events?

Promoting a sustainable event starts with creating and using sustainable materials to ensure the promotion is accurate. The corporation can use many sustainable meeting ideas, and the team can begin by planning online meetings to reduce the paper used and the plastic waste that comes with meetings in-person. Sustainable initiatives include single-use toiletry bottles and organic food at these events. 

The team can focus on sustainable materials such as glass bottles and reusable plates if the event includes food. These sustainable ideas and materials must be in place before the advertisement can start.

Promoting an event will start by capitalizing on social media platforms. Advertise directly on the platforms that the target audience use. Another focus should be similar or partner companies that can share the event with their customer base.

FAQs

How To Make A Meeting Sustainable?

There are multiple methods of obtaining this task. The company can start by providing online material and documents to reduce paper usage. Other forms of sustainable meetings will be using reusable glass bottles. The company can use planners and industry leaders to create a sustainable office.

What Are The Differences Between Green Meetings and Sustainable Meetings>

A green session focuses on the current session and what the company can do to improve engagement through eco-friendly materials and methods. A sustainable conference focuses on an ongoing process to ensure that every meeting forward will be sustainable. The green meetings focus on the biggest impact they can have at the moment, while the sustainable sessions focus on continuous positive impact over a long period. 

What Are Examples Of Sustainable Events?

An eco-friendly event focusing on a low carbon footprint or creating green events through online platforms and reusable material. These events stretch across many industries and platforms, and these events will reduce all the waste they use and provide attendees with cleaner and healthier options. Virtual meetings, event apps, and using shuttle buses at big events are great examples of sustainable meeting management. 

Final Thoughts

Eco-friendly and sustainable have snowballed throughout the last few years. Big companies aim to reach a net zero, while smaller companies focus on reducing their carbon footprint and increasing their sustainable products at events.

The best way to become a sustainable meeting corporation will be to hire a green event organizer to lead the company to success. Green meetings and sustainability can have many benefits for a corporate company. Thus, using it sooner rather than later will greatly benefit the company and the planet. 

Sabine Ghali

Kelly Murphy

PRESIDENT & FOUNDER

Certified Meeting planner with 20+ years of event management experience, founder of ConferenceSource, expert in meeting facility sourcing & contracting in North America, Europe, South America and Asia. Kelly will manage your budget as if they were her own, negotiating the best possible rate and hotel contract to benefit and protect every client and exceed all expectations for all planning aspects for sales meetings, educational meetings, product launches, incentive trips down to a small board of directors meeting. We make meetings easy understanding your meeting objectives and delivering meeting matched components.