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“In the meetings industry, sustainability has evolved from being a ‘nice-to-have feature’ to a ‘must have,’” says Andi Stelpflug, director, global events and experiences, at Rockwell Automation in Milwaukee, WI. “It’s now expected that venues have fundamental sustainability basics such as water coolers and recyclable service ware, to name a few.”

Meeting venues today have a range of sustainable features, from the basics Stelpflug mentions to buildings constructed from the ground up as shining examples of working environmental integrity, such as the new LEED Platinum Summit building at the Seattle Convention Center. Corporations are also leaning into greater sustainability, coming into planning with a range of requirements for their meetings and conventions. Planners are tasked with making destination and venue choices based in part on the availability of eco-friendly options.

“Sustainability is absolutely a major focus,” Stelpflug says. “At Rockwell Automation, it’s not only a focus for meetings and events, but also central to our purpose to make the world more productive and more sustainable, and to our promise of Expanding Human Possibility.”

Stelpflug believes the shift emphasizes a growing awareness and demand within the industry to prioritize positive environmental practices. “It’s likely driven by an increasing emphasis on corporate social responsibility and a broader societal recognition of environmental issues,” she says. “It’s really exciting to see this significant transformation in the meetings industry, with sustainability now being a core consideration and venues expected to incorporate eco-friendly practices as a standard offering.”

Rockwell Automation itself is committed to sustainability, in every aspect of its meetings. For example, Stelpflug says, booth and event assets must be used for at least three years, and once an asset is retired, the booth is recycled. If an asset has a lifespan of less than three years, a rental is considered instead. Water filling stations are always located throughout the event and no bottled beverages are offered.

Additionally, 100% of display lighting must be LED and paper has been eliminated at the largest events in favor of mobile apps. “We’re still working on paperless at our smaller events, but we’re making great progress,” Stelpflug says. “We also recycle name badges, signage and banners and power down or sleep electronics overnight. Rockwell’s largest event utilizes over 5,000 CPUs in training sessions and the exhibit hall. Powering down the majority of those items overnight significantly reduces electrical consumption during our event. If you can’t turn off your electronics, simply setting them to sleep can make a big impact.”

Stelpflug notes that the company’s largest event also requires 50+ semi-trailers of assets and displays. By coordinating shipments, however, even as the event has grown in size and scope, she says they’ve reduced the number of trailers and thus emissions.

Food and food packaging are critical meeting components when it comes to reducing waste and being “greener.” Rockwell Automation chooses to work with F&B partners committed to sourcing local food and drink, and composting food waste and packaging. At smaller events, they use silverware and china plates vs. single-use products. And they donate leftover meals locally. “Following our largest event in 2022, we donated over 5000 lunches,” Stelpflug says.

Merchandise is another challenge. They recently revamped their merchandising program to include significantly more sustainable goods — from both a materials and a sourcing standpoint, meaning using local materials when possible.

Not surprising, venue selection is important. “Whenever possible, we select venues that prioritize sustainability,” Stelpflug says. “Most recently, we were at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center, which is LEED-certified by the U.S. Green Building Council, has state-of-the-art lighting and HVAC systems, limits energy and water usage, and has a 47% average waste diversion rate. We aren’t yet at the point that we exclude venues based solely on sustainability practices; however, we certainly prioritize and are more likely to select a venue that aligns to our organizational sustainability goals.”

That was the case with Anaheim, where the group will host Automation Fair 2024. “Not only is Anaheim an amazing location for our growing event, the city and the venues share Rockwell’s passion and commitment to sustainability. We were on a recent site visit, and I was impressed with the Anaheim Convention Center’s numerous standard sustainability practices.”

Stelpflug knows sustainability isn’t always the lowest-cost option, especially for small meetings on small budgets. But she says it’s important to consider the long-term benefits and potential savings. “Emphasizing the importance of sustainability and involving everyone in the process can create a positive and conscious environment without breaking the bank.”

She encourages planners to let attendees know about sustainable efforts. “Think about it. Many sustainable activities are invisible to event attendees — reduced paper, recycled exhibit booths, powering down computers, donated meals and so on. Attendees want to know about and feel good about attending sustainable events. Don’t be afraid to brag a little bit about the sustainability efforts your team is implementing.”

As for where to start, she says, “Start small. There are many little things planners can do that make a big difference.”

Lacey Gautier, CEM, is vice president of events for Informa Markets, a b2b provider of major exhibitions among other things. “Sustainability remains a major focus and is growing increasingly important for attendees, particularly those who represent younger generations and the new wave of decisionmakers,” she says.

Informa Markets tackles sustainability on many fronts. “We’re working toward the elimination of single-use plastics through various partnerships and investments, including a focus on reusable drinkware for networking receptions and sampling of products,” Gautier says. “Our show bags and lanyards are made from 100% post-consumer recycled water bottles. We have three-bin, front-of-house recycle/compost/landfill systems and a back-of-house waste sorting system to maximize waste diverted from landfills.”

Additionally, the company prohibits foam board and Styrofoam items. “To ensure the most effective recycling and landfill prevention, we’ve designated areas for cardboard drop off and zero-waste solutions for items not typically accepted in single-stream recycling facilities,” she says. “We track energy consumption at the convention center and hotel to offset the carbon impact, and we offset all staff travel to and from the show. Finally, we work with the convention center to ensure HVAC systems and lighting levels are only used when necessary.”

Gautier says one major hurdle is that all of the different facilities for waste, composting and recycling across different cities have different rules, regulations and systems. According to her, they can be challenging to understand and to utilize most effectively. There’s also uncertainty around what types of promotional items and procurement practices exhibitors and other partners bring into the environment, which can create challenges. Finally, budgeting and investment justifications are, of course, hard, particularly with increasing prices.

Her group addresses sustainability from the start. One of the main elements of their RFP is centered around the venue and destination city’s sustainability program(s). They begin these discussions prior to booking.

Among the destinations where Informa Market has found it easy to create a sustainably focused meeting are Anaheim, Philadelphia and Baltimore.

In addition to taking basic steps toward sustainability, Gautier suggests planners set up a sponsorship program to offset sustainability costs. She also advises creating a five-year plan to most effectively budget and set goals. “It’s a marathon,” she says, “not a sprint!”

Julia Maes is an executive producer with VidCon, the company behind VidCon Anaheim, a mega show devoted to digital creation and culture. The 2023 edition drew 55,000 attendees. “Sustainability efforts continue to increase year over year at major events. It might not yet be a major focus for everyone, but events are at least acknowledging that it is an aspect audiences look for. You can no longer ignore the impact large events have on the environment,” Maes says.

“Our sustainability efforts span nearly the full scope of the event,” she continues, adding that Anaheim Convention Center is a great partner for those efforts. Major areas of focus for VidCon were food waste and print signage. Convention center caterers were asked to minimize waste and take part in the recycling program. Any suitable food items that were left over each day were donated to local charities or food banks to avoid food waste. For signage, they try each year to migrate more from printed graphics to digital monitors. They also earmark a small amount of non-recyclable banners for reuse the following year by Rewilder, a zero-waste fashion company that transforms banners into a limited-edition, upcycled merchandise line and zero-waste furniture, diverting waste from a life in storage or landfills.

Because of the size of the show, Maes says they have many factors to consider when choosing a venue, though sustainability missions and models at each building are certainly a topic of conversation. However, there are many hurdles.

“The sheer number of people and activations within an event as large as ours means there’s a pretty hard ceiling as far as what we can reduce and reuse. With a small meeting of 50 people, you might be able to get away with reusable glassware and napkins, entirely digital event materials, and so on. But once you tick into the thousands, the effort to create that same model at that scale becomes deeply challenging — and often not achievable.”

In addition to encouraging attendees to bring their own reusable water bottles, Maes says planners should identify which other items fill dumpsters headed for landfills or even recycling and consider ways to reduce or eliminate those from the start — single-use giveaways such as cheap swag and printed agendas, for example.

“Embracing sustainability will resonate with your leadership and your audiences,” she says. “It’s good business and good will to produce sustainable events, so take a crawl, walk, run approach. Find some low-lift efforts for your first year and grow from there. Finding great partners, either external or internal, who can help you bounce ideas together and push you out of your comfort zone, will also go a long way.”

Corey Clark, senior sustainability manager with Honeycomb Strategies, which helps the hospitality, sports, venue and events industries become more eco-friendly, believes sustainability is still very much a focus for the meetings industry and, in fact, a growing factor in planning an event.

“Planners are looking beyond single-use plastic water bottles and evaluating how waste is created, what the emission factor of the menu is and how much carbon is produced from traveling to the event. Sustainability is also a conversation with every vendor partner now — a group effort.”

It starts, she says, “with educating the exhibitors how to build the booths for reuse and ship in one crated shipment. We also request that they bring items that are not single-use and are made with recyclable or compostable material. We work with the general services contractor to ensure we’re using items that can be recycled or re-used and try to not produce materials that will end in the landfill. This is hard because there are not good alternatives to many substrates, so we ask ourselves if we really need those items.”

Green goals are discussed from the start of the meeting process, when vetting locations and venues. “We look at public transportation to/from the venue and airport and whether or not the venue uses renewable energy. Waste programs are also important, including composting.”

Among the biggest challenges for planners, Clark says, is reducing emissions. Unfortunately, most emissions associated with an event come from travel to and from the event.

“Sponsorship is another area of opportunity but also a challenge,” Clark notes. “We love our sponsors and want to promote them, yet many times it’s through the use of unsustainable substrates such as window decals.”

In terms of food and beverage, Clark says the goal is to choose items with a smaller carbon footprint and resource use. Not every main dish has to include beef, for example.

She believes that venues themselves also want to reduce energy and some requests are simple. Many times, they request that escalators are powered off when the event is not live, and that lighting and heating/AC are reduced during setup and breakdown as well.

Organizers can positively impact meeting sustainability via educated choices and behind-the-scenes decisions; however, Clark points out, attendees have a huge impact on the carbon footprint of an event. In addition to reminding them to bring their refillable water bottles and coffee containers, Clark says encouraging them to take public transportation as much as possible also makes a difference.

To planners, Clark says, “Be a role model. Practice what you’re asking of your vendor partners. And ask your partners how they can help you on the journey. It’s not all up to you as the planner.”

Whatever steps you and your organizations take, whatever environmentally conscious features venues add, the signs are clear: The industry is moving toward sustainability and that’s not just good for the planet, it’s good for everyone. C&IT