Meetings & Conventions (M&C) magazine recently surveyed 161 meeting professionals about their views on venues and green efforts. Let’s check out some of the questions and results.
Are green certifications a factor in your venue selection?
- Yes, to a great extent (4 percent)
- Yes, somewhat (24 percent)
- To a minimal extent (33 percent)
- Not at all (39 percent)
How important are green policies and procedures?
Convention Center
- Very important (14 percent)
- Somewhat important (41 percent)
- Not too important (25 percent)
- Not at all important (20 percent)
Event Venue
- Very important (10 percent)
- Somewhat important (33 percent)
- Not too important (33 percent)
- Not at all important (24 percent)
Let’s consider how venue managers answered similar questions in the “2012 IAVM Sustainability Survey.”
When asked how important that a facility be environmentally friendly or green, 96 percent of venues who have implemented sustainable programs say it’s very important or somewhat important. That number drops to 42 percent for venues that have not implemented a sustainable program.
Furthermore, 62 percent of those surveyed say that implementation of an environmental strategy is valuable to customers or suppliers. Compare that to the 58 percent of planners in the M&C survey who believe that sustainable efforts are very or somewhat important to their meeting attendees.
If sustainable efforts are viewed as important by both sides, then why isn’t the effort practiced more often? That’s easy. It comes down to a different type of green.
For meeting professionals, 74 percent rarely or never implement green meeting procedures that require added costs. For venues, 84 percent cite costs as the deterrent to implementing sustainable practices at a facility.
No matter how much we talk about sustainability, until we can find ways to reduce costs, it’ll never be easy being green.
(Image of the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh via Flickr: Roy Luck/Creative Commons)
