Association events are entering a new era of reckoning when it comes to going green. After years of incremental sustainability efforts — switching plastic to compostables, adding recycling stations, trimming waste streams — a growing cohort of planners is urging the industry toward something more ambitious: net zero carbon events. Their message emphasizes that reducing impact isn’t enough anymore; eliminating it is the new bar.

Across the meetings industry, planners, suppliers and venues are rethinking every element of event design, from destination selection to freight logistics to food sourcing. The shift is driven by heightened attendee awareness, organizational ESG commitments and the rising availability of shared industry frameworks. As one expert put it, the era of “green-tinged” events is over; the era of carbon-accountable events has begun.

To understand how planners can meaningfully pursue net zero goals, we spoke with six leaders shaping the future of sustainable events. Their insights reveal that net zero is not a single tactic or a checklist, but a systems-level redesign of how events are planned, measured and brought to life.

The Big Levers:
Reducing Emissions Before Offsetting

Every expert agreed on one vital truth: reducing emissions at the source is far more impactful than offsetting them later. And the biggest levers are often in planners’ hands long before the first attendee arrives.

Destination & Venue Selection:
The First — and Largest — Decision

Experienced strategic impact and sustainability consultant Amanda Simons, in Milwaukie, OR, is unequivocal about where planners should begin. “Planners should think about their emissions in two ways: what they can directly control and what can they ask vendors and partners to do.” Simons specializes in trade shows, live events and destination work.

The most consequential decision is choosing where the event takes place. “Destination and venue selection is the single biggest lever a planner has to help reduce emissions,” she explains. She urges planners to look closely at the transportation infrastructure around the venue itself. “Can people walk between the hotel block, the convention center and evening functions, or does every touchpoint require a shuttle or rideshare?”

This aligns with broader industry data: travel — especially air travel — typically accounts for 80-95% of an event’s total emissions, according to Corey Clark, director of events & experiences for Honeycomb Strategies in Crested Butte, CO. “Travel is not avoidable,” Clark comments, “but the emissions from it can be mitigated. Look at where your attendees come from—can you get the event closer to them?”

Ryan Green, LEED AP, SEPC, founder of Green Analytics in Las Vegas, NV, adds a critical reframing that many associations have never been told. “Associations are the ones most often held responsible for impacts they don’t control,” he says. “An association exists to create a space where an entire industry can gather and collaborate — but the moment the convention or trade show ends, the association is handed the bill for everything that happened inside it: every exhibitor’s booth build and teardown, every attendee’s flight, all the waste from hundreds of independent companies operating on that floor. That’s misattribution.”

Green’s work directly addresses this problem. “We measure each event and assign every ton of carbon to the party that controlled the source — each attendee’s travel to their employer, each booth to its exhibitor.” For associations, he says, this shift is transformative: “It lets them finally address the emissions they actually control, instead of drowning in a number that was never theirs. And it gives them the standing to direct every stakeholder on their floor to measure and reduce their own share.”

Simons also notes that planners often underestimate how much emissions reduction can be achieved simply by choosing walkable destinations. Cities with compact downtowns, integrated transit and convention districts designed for pedestrian flow can eliminate thousands of shuttle miles over the course of a multiday event.

Format & Program Design:
Rethinking Attendance Itself

Simons urges planners to rethink the event format. Hybrid programming can reduce unnecessary travel, and colocating events can consolidate trips. “These are decisions planners make before a single offset gets purchased,” she says, “and they typically account for the largest share of an event’s emissions. Travel usually dwarfs venue energy and F&B combined.”

Alycia Drube, founder of Positive+Impact Event Consulting in Seattle, WA, frames it even more simply — the most important strategy is attention. “The sooner we have our eyes on a concern,” she states, “the more likely we can find a clever solution, select a better option or avoid a pitfall.”

Green reinforces that format decisions matter — but so does understanding who truly owns the emissions. “The Net Zero Carbon Events (NZCE) guidance holds that an organizer only accounts for the travel and lodging it directly books or pays for,” he explains.

Most associations, he says, assume they’re responsible for all attendee travel. “Under NZCE’s own rules, they aren’t. What the association can control is the real reduction lever: geography. Most association meetings are already regional and low-travel; they just have no way to prove it — not to shrink the room.”

Measurement:
The Backbone of Net Zero Credibility

If reduction is the heart of net zero, measurement is its backbone. Without credible data, planners can’t manage emissions, report progress or avoid greenwashing.

A Shared Industry Methodology Emerges

The most significant development in recent years is the rise of the NZCE Measurement Methodology, published in 2023 and developed by the global NZCE initiative.

The methodology also helps planners understand which emissions sources are most challenging to quantify. Johanna Fuhlendorf, programme director of Net Zero Carbon Events Initiative, notes that attendee travel, freight logistics and accommodation data often require coordination across multiple partners and systems.

Green sees the methodology as part of a larger shift toward shared responsibility. “Everything I measure comes from documents the event already generates — banquet orders, AV orders, freight manifests — so it’s real activity data tied to a real owner, not a blended estimate,” he says. The hardest piece, he notes, is attendee travel. “The 2025 IMEX Frankfurt report attributed 95% of its entire footprint to participant travel and accommodation — strip that out and a 14,600-ton event is barely 116 tons. It’s the one part that never sits on the organizer’s books, so it has to be reconstructed and assigned attendee by attendee, employer by employer.”

Boundaries, Data Sources & Verification

Simons stresses that planners must define the boundary of their carbon footprint — whether it includes attendee travel or only onsite operations — and use consistent emissions factors such as the Department for Environmental Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) or Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). “If you are publishing your numbers,” she adds, “it might be good to get third-party verification.”

Drube offers a pragmatic perspective: carbon footprint is useful, but planners shouldn’t overlook simpler metrics. “It is much easier to measure how much waste there was at your event and where it went,” she says, adding that it is easier to measure how far your gear and staff are coming from and how local and in season the menu ingredients are.

Green’s model gives associations a clearer path. He says, “It gives them the standing to direct every stakeholder on their floor to measure and reduce their own share. The association stops holding the bag for the entire industry — and becomes the one convening that industry to fix it together.”

Vendor Data:
The Missing Link

Large venues often have systems to deliver the data planners need, while smaller venues may struggle.

Green agrees — but adds that suppliers are often doing more than planners realize. “Ask for numbers only the supplier can produce — not a values statement, but how many reusable place settings a caterer owns or how many tons of carpet a contractor recycled versus landfilled. From the contractor side, I’ve found most suppliers are already doing the sustainable thing — reuse is their whole model — and have simply never been credited for it.”

Venue Standards:
What Net Zero Ready Infrastructure Looks Like

As more planners push toward net zero, venues are feeling rising pressure to demonstrate real sustainability performance — not just polished pitch decks.

Energy, Waste & Data Transparency

Fuhlendorf outlines the essentials: renewable energy supply, waste management programs, sustainability requirements for suppliers, reliable data sharing and accessibility via sustainable transport modes.

Simons advises planners to dig deeper than marketing claims. “My advice is not to flat out accept a sustainability pitch deck at face value — ask for details,” she says. “A venue that is operating sustainability on a consistent basis will have this data ready.”

She recommends asking:

• “Do you have year-over-year energy and waste data?”
• “Can you show me results from comparable events you’ve hosted?”
• “Where does your energy actually come from?”
• “What happens to waste after it leaves the building?”

Green brings a venue-side perspective that few planners hear. “I come at this differently, because I’ve managed a venue and saw the requests placed on them first-hand — and I think venues have been handed a burden that was never fairly theirs,” he says. The industry leans heavily on venues to produce numbers, he adds, but “a venue can’t tell you what an event actually consumed until well after it’s over, which is too late to change anything about that event.”

His approach “takes that work — and that dependency — off the venue entirely,” shifting measurement back to the stakeholders who actually generated the emissions.

Behind the Scenes Access

Drube encourages planners to request tours of back-of-house areas like waste sorting and to ask about staff training. Green notes that behind-the-scenes access also reveals where suppliers are already operating sustainably. “Most contractors reuse far more than planners realize,” he says. “Measurement simply makes that visible.”

Travel:
The Elephant in the Room

Travel remains the largest and most stubborn emissions source for events. But planners have more influence than they may realize.

Reducing Travel Emissions Without Reducing Attendance

Fuhlendorf highlights several strategies:

• Colocating events with similar attendee groups
• Prioritizing destinations with strong ground transportation
• Encouraging direct flights
• Communicating sustainable travel options clearly
• Providing incentives for lower-carbon modes

Clark adds that planners should analyze where attendees originate and consider moving the event closer to them. She also recommends offering travel offset options directly at registration — “not a separate transaction.”

Green reiterates that organizers must focus on what they can control — geography, which is the single biggest lever for reducing travel emissions.

Attendee Behavior:
Defaults Over Incentives

Simons believes planners should stop relying on incentives and instead design sustainability into the event itself. “Attendees increasingly expect sustainability to be baked in rather than offered as a bonus,” she says.

Drube agrees, noting that attendees “want to do the most sustainable thing” when it’s accessible.

Green adds that attendee behavior is easier to influence when the association can show that the event is already low-travel. “Most association meetings are regional by nature,” he says. “Measurement finally gives them the proof.”

Food, Materials & Waste:
Designing for Circularity

Food and materials may not rival travel in emissions impact, but they are highly visible to attendees — and central to net zero credibility.

F&B: Local, Seasonal, Low Impact

Simons recommends defaulting to sustainable F&B sourced locally and seasonally. Drube emphasizes menu design psychology: attendees choose what’s easiest and most visible.

Green notes that foodservice suppliers often have reusable assets that go unrecognized. “Ask how many reusable place settings a caterer owns,” he says. “It’s a real number and it tells you how much single-use material you’re avoiding.”

Materials & Production:
Reusables & Smart Logistics

Clark highlights pack-in/pack-out policies as a way to reduce waste and educate partners. Simons suggests eliminating single-use signage and requiring reusable dinnerware as early wins.

Green adds that contractors often reuse far more than planners realize. “Reuse is their whole model,” he says. “Measurement simply makes that visible — and rewards the suppliers who can hand you a real number.”

Supplier Alignment:
Building a Net Zero Supply Chain

Net zero events cannot be achieved by planners alone. Supplier alignment is essential — and increasingly expected.

RFPs & Contracts: Put Sustainability Up Front

Simons and Clark both stress that sustainability must be a stated requirement in RFPs, not an afterthought.

Green says the key is measurable proof. “Pull it from their invoices, verify it and reward the ones who can hand you a real number with repeat business,” he says.

Third-Party Frameworks: A Shortcut to Credibility

Clark points to the Events Industry Council (EIC), EcoVadis, Better Stands and NZCE as validated frameworks that help planners identify vendors already committed to sustainability.

Green notes that NZCE’s shared-responsibility model is the missing link: “It aligns every stakeholder with the part of the footprint they actually control.”

Trends Shaping the Future of Net Zero Events

Measurement & Accountability

According to Lindsay Roberts, vice president of Strategic Events, Meetings & Incentives for MCI USA in Port Washington, NY, clients increasingly expect “data-backed reporting, instead of vague sustainability claims.” Carbon and waste metrics are becoming standard KPIs.

Green’s work accelerates this trend by assigning emissions to their true owners. “It’s the only way to get credible numbers,” he says.

Travel Scrutiny

Roberts notes a heightened focus on travel emissions. Green’s model gives associations a clearer story: most attendee travel is not theirs and measurement can finally prove it.

Anti-Greenwashing Pressure

Demand for verifiable, third-party aligned reporting is rising. Green’s 60% reduction threshold for offsets sets a higher bar than current practice.

Regenerative Events

Roberts sees regenerative events as the next evolution, saying, “The conversation is evolving beyond ‘doing less harm’ toward creating positive impact.”

Green agrees — but stresses that regeneration must be built on credible measurement first.

The Net Zero Dos and Don’ts

Roberts offers a clear set of principles:

Do:

• Set measurable sustainability goals and KPIs early
• Measure carbon emissions and waste using recognized approaches
• Select venues and suppliers with demonstrated sustainability credentials
• Prioritize local sourcing, seasonal menus and waste reduction
• Reduce travel, freight and single-use materials
• Publish transparent post-event impact reporting

Don’t:

• Treat offsets as your primary strategy
• Wait until production begins to consider sustainability
• Focus only on recycling while ignoring major emission drivers
• Make sustainability claims without data
• Exclude suppliers and stakeholders from objectives and accountability

Green adds one more: “Don’t offset until you’ve proven real reduction. Offsets must be the last step — not a receipt bought in place of it.”

A New Era of Carbon Accountability

Net zero carbon events illustrate a major shift in how the meetings industry defines sustainable success. It’s no longer enough to host a seamless program or deliver strong attendance. Today’s events must also demonstrate measurable, credible and transparent progress toward eliminating their carbon impact.

Net zero is not a distant aspiration. It’s an achievable goal — if planners start early, measure rigorously, collaborate deeply and design sustainability into every decision.

As the industry continues to evolve its emphasis on sustainability, one thing is clear: the future of association events will be defined not only by what they deliver to attendees, but by what they no longer take from the planet. | AC&F |