Ethical events

As the climate increasingly hots up so does the activity to cool down meetings. The UK’s national sustainable tourism certification programme, the Green Tourism Business Scheme (GTBS) or Green Tourism for short, has seen interest from the business market grow steadily in 2010 and rise further in 2011. Interestingly the driving forces for these activities are their corporate customers; companies, agencies and public bodies.

Sustainability, carbon reduction commitments, and corporate responsibility are all influencing the market and the Green Tourism scheme provides a practical, cost effective framework for conference centres and events venues to deliver what their customers want. The Green Tourism scheme has seen significant interest from these markets over the past two years. Pricing requests and conditions for bookings from public agencies and corporations are requiring not just a commitment to the environment but a nationally recognised third party certification that includes social issues as well as environmental best practice.

FACE TO FACE
“There will always be a need for face to face meetings,” says Jon Proctor. “We’re a species which thrives on communication, so we’ll always need to get together, no matter how well the internet is able to share information.”

Still, Jon believes we can all be more green and responsible while we network. That’s inevitable: he is, after all, technical director of Green Tourism which currently has over 2,400 members, including over 60 conference centres and events venues.

In order to pass through the certification programme, sites follow a common framework which considers energy, waste and water monitoring and targeting as well as key performance indicators in social and environmental activities. A sense of place is also important and this is measured through further voluntary indicators.

To assess how sustainable a venue is, the Green Tourism auditor on the site visit assesses 145 different criteria – everything from the kind of fish on the menu to proficiency in waste management and the control of heating and cooling. Through this process potential practical improvements are readily identified and these form part of the action plan set for each site in moving forward.

“Good advice is an essential part of our certification programme,” said Jon. “The assessment process verifies the actions undertaken thus far and at the same time points out potential improvements and savings. We provide a range of online tools for members to help manage their venues better, identify potential projects (through case studies and fact sheets) and record and promote achievements.”     

Businesses and venues are scored and receive a Bronze, Silver, or Gold award, based on their level of achievement. Many of the measures relate to providing a better experience for their customers and ensuring that the venue is reducing the environmental impact of the meeting for their clients.

ENERGY SAVINGS
In a recession going green with the Green Tourism Business Scheme makes as much sense as during the boom years. As energy prices become a greater proportion of the running costs of leading business venues, innovative and well proven practices need to be established. 

“Overall Businesses in the GTBS have been tracking a five-40 per cent energy saving based upon our records.” said Jon. “Sites just starting out on this journey often make the biggest savings through acting upon our recommendations and a number of sites seek to receive an advisory visit ahead of the accreditation audit.”

“It continually surprises us that there are significant untapped savings available to conference centres, from improvements to air handling systems, maintenance regimes and motor drives to new technologies and management systems,” said Jon.   

“Over the last three years our Green Tourism assessors have seen our venues respond to this challenge with tremendous enthusiasm and innovation and there are many examples of good practice.”

GREEN VENUES
Edinburgh International Conference Centre (EICC) has designed a Sustainable Events Programme, Plan-it green™ that helps the business and its clients to minimise emissions across a range of greenhouse gases. A further sequestration option is available employing a carbon sink of native Scottish woodland.

EICC’s CEO, Hans H. Rissmann OBE says: “Caring for the environment must become an embedded business process in all companies, irrespective of size, as customers everywhere increasingly demand positive ‘People, Planet, Profit’ outcomes.”

ACC Liverpool, completed in 2005, was designed to produce half the CO2 emissions it would without any environmentally-friendly measures, whilst using 20 per cent less electricity – lighting, for instance, is high efficiency and controlled by motion detection.  It has been GTBS Gold since 2008.   

Rainwater is collected on the roof which is used to support flushing toilets, accounting for about 40 per cent of the water used for toilets in the venue; five 20-metre low noise wind turbines on the river side of the venue contribute to their electricity supply. This means that they have a reduced impact per attendee and they continue to develop projects to ensure all events have sustainable features.

The Cavendish Conference Centre in London, also GTBS Gold, has a number of green initiatives available to conference organisers including a webinar service for delegates unable to attend in person, a travel survey of delegates, goodie bags of recycled products and use of recycled stationery. They also offer a discount on the room hire if the organisers minimise the amount of waste left at the end of an event/meeting.

LOW ENERGY BUILDINGS
Recently awarded a GTBS Gold The Point at the Lancashire County Cricket Club is an excellent example of a low impact building with energy consumption reduced through LED lights, solar hot water, highly efficient appliances and excellent insulation. The recycling system is extensive and very well managed with a 98 per cent diversion rate from landfill, and there is great encouragement for guests to use public transport (which is readily accessible by Manchester’s new tram system). The Point is also very good at promoting the green message to raise awareness of environmental issues, including giving a donation to their chosen charity, MacMillan, on every bottle of Fair Trade wine purchased.

The Best Western Valley Hotel in Ironbridge retained their Gold status just last month and they offer a sustainable conference package. This includes fresh local food produce, filtered tap water rather than bottled water, fair trade products and recycling options for paper, glass, plastic, cardboard and aluminium. They will also produce a certificate to provide evidence of the clients’ commitment to green objectives. We asked the hotel to comment on the interest in the sustainable conference package: “The Environment Agency has a number of training courses with us, who utilise many aspects of the package as part their own sustainability policy,” said Joanne Boddison, general manger of the hotel. “One of the main strands of the package was to enable companies who as part of their green credentials prefer to use more sustainable suppliers, so we provide the green conference package as we know that sustainability continues to be important.”

John McIntrye Conference Centre (JMCC) also holds a Gold award. The site in Edinburgh is part of the university and has fair trade status for teas, coffees, sugars, fruit juice, bananas, dried fruit and rice. The sale of fair trade rice is linked to a school project in Malawi and so far over 70 children have been sponsored. The centre uses combined heat and power and has an in vessel composting system to recycle food waste. All of this helps to demonstrate significant waste and energy savings in comparison to others and this helps them achieve this high rating.

GREEN MEETING PACKAGE
Queen Anne’s Gate, who this week has been upgrated from Bronze to Silver, has established and developed its green meeting package. These conference bookings have doubled over the last year as a result. Clients they have attracted include government agencies, voluntary conservation organisations, renewable technology companies and lobby groups. The green pound now represents 18 per cent of their conference related revenue.  

“One of the elements in their green package (which includes a range of recycled materials) has been the change from linen table cloths to acrylic coverings saving over £2500 per annum in laundry costs never mind associated chemicals, and transport,” said Stuart Park, the site assessor. “This goes to show that it is the combined efforts and achievements over a broad range of measures which ultimately make a difference.”  

Jon concludes: “It is a most exciting time in our marketplace and we have seen all businesses we deal with really taking note and making significant strides in their eco performance. We can demonstrate that our businesses are achieving significant demonstrable improvements with increased savings as well as securing more bookings through the green pound and we are even getting evidence that the best employees and graduates preferentially choose green businesses to work for.“

“However we also notice that greenwashing is still a problem and unless businesses undertake a more thorough and holistic approach much of the objectives in energy savings, efficiency and CSR will be undermined through other activities. Going forward we see biodiversity and achieving genuine and more significant CO2 savings as growing issues important to both consumers and government which need to be more fully addressed by the sector.”

Our GTBS guarantee is that we will continue to recognise the best in the sector through our three tiers (Bronze, Silver, Gold), which will raise the standards further in our next programme revision (version V) to be rolled out before the summer Olympics and ensure that any certified business does not overstate their activities and achievements. It is our intention that the UK becomes and remains the leading destination in sustainable tourism and events and we encourage all readers to become partners with us in this exciting challenge.    

FACTS AT A GLANCE
• Green Tourism Business Scheme members include hotels, tour operators, conference centres and visitor attractions.
• Members need to score 40 per cent to receive a Bronze, 65 per cent for a Silver and 80 per cent for a Gold.
• There are over 60 conference centre and events venues all listed on the website www.green-business.co.uk. Twenty of them hold a Gold award
• There are nearly 700 hotels with a GTBS grading many of which have conference facilities.

FOR MORE INFORMATION
The GTBS is run by GBUK a not for profit company established to deliver sustainable tourism in the UK. For further information please visit www.green-business.co.uk or call Andrea Nicholas on 01738 632162