Earth Matters: None of Your Business’s Business? Or...

... a Natural Part of Your Business Strategy?

One great way to get excited about your job: Find ways to help your organization make a better impression by leaving a smaller one. Sustainability consultant Beverly Oviedo attracted a full house of event planners with her well-researched, thought-provoking and action-plan-ready seminar on “Planning and Managing Green Meetings.”

Presented during the HSMAI conference in DC (see related KNOW post), topics ranged from determining capabilities of prospective meeting venues for hosting eco-friendly meetings to specific ways to turn your workplace a brighter shade of green.

Though geared to event planners, Oviedo’s smart advice could be put into practice by anyone who’d like their company reduce its negative impact on the environment and help the world one man-hour at a time.

Here’s a sampling of ideas:

* Choose alternatives to bottled water and other beverages that come in individual containers. Sure, they’re convenient, but they clog landfills with matter that takes ages to degrade. Try water coolers and pitchers on tables. With glasses -- see below.

* Ditch the disposables. A 5-day conference of 2,500 attendees providing a continental breakfast, two breaks, lunch and a daily evening reception will use: 62,500 plates, 87,500 napkins, 75,000 cups and glasses, 90,000 cans and/or bottles. While choosing items with recyclable content helps, consider this: Environmental Defense Fund research shows that using 1000 disposable plastic teaspoons consumes over 10 times more energy and natural resources than manufacturing one stainless steel teaspoon and washing it 1,000 times.

* Sobering thought: When we throw something “away,” there really is not an “away.”
Case in point: When landfill space ran out, Naples, Italy closed its landfill – prompting citizens to pile trash in the streets.

* Doable “lighten your stay” steps include:

Put your environmental policy in writing and spread the word, making it part of the core/corporate culture. Get input from all employees to the bottom rung, and at the top, stress the triple bottom line.

Use paperless technology.

Reduce travel fuel consumption.

Practice the 3 Rs: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Eat green – lower on the food chain. Choose local, seasonal foods and vegetarian fare. Great selections exist and will increase when demand increases.

Save energy via a policy mandating “turn off when not in use.”

* Cool new affordable technology that could save your life in emergencies and while traveling: The Life Straw, a portable straw that filters out microbes and viruses.

* Biodegradable good, Compostable better. Within 6 months compostables will be returned into nontoxic usable matter.

Note: For details and resources on this topic, get the Summer 2007 issue of HSMAI Marketing Review. I wrote the cover story about The Greening of the Hospitality Industry. www.HSMAI.org