While corporate events have long been a staple in the business world, their massive carbon footprint is undeniable. Thankfully, as more and more event professionals and corporations become climate-conscious, sustainable corporate events are becoming more popular.
Many NY event planners are focusing on arranging eco-friendly business gatherings to follow their personal values and cater to their client’s needs. With enough thoughtful consideration and event planning knowledge, you can also ensure your corporate gathering gets the green thumb of approval. You can effectively reduce the event’s negative impact on the environment while exceeding the attendees’ expectations.
Keep reading to discover the strategies you can use to host a successful sustainable corporate event:
What Are Sustainable Corporate Events?
A sustainable corporate event involves making individual choices that will collectively reduce or eliminate the negative environmental impact of the gathering regardless of its scale. In fact, it attempts to preserve the natural environment, supports a thriving economy, and promotes an inclusive environment while ensuring business sustainability.
That said, lowering the carbon footprint of a corporate event is no mean feat, as it impacts all your planning decisions. It demands proactively thinking, appropriate guidance, a realistic approach, attainable goal setting, and smart use of resources. Some prime examples of sustainable event planning involve leveraging renewable energy sources, choosing an eco-friendly venue, providing recycling receptacles to the attendees, maximizing water use, etc.
5 Benefits of Sustainable Corporate Events Planning
Eco-friendly corporate events and conferences are designed to be environmentally, socially, and economically responsible. Sustainably planning an event also offers the following undeniable benefits:
1. Reduced Environmental Impact
Join the rank of NY event planners who embrace a shared sense of duty to embrace sustainable event planning practices. It will help you organize eco-friendly events implementing various social, environmental, and economic considerations. Ultimately, it will help you alleviate your negative impact on the environment.
2. Cost Reduction
While you may think an eco-friendly event might cost more than a traditional event, technological advancements have ensured that sustainable events help you reduce costs. These events can prove to be cost-effective thanks to hybrid models, event management software, e-invites, digital signage displays, and reusable event elements. With eco-friendly practices, you can ensure your event is less costly and offers an improved return on investment while helping the environment.
3. Improved Reputation
Many businesses and individuals now care about decreasing their environmental footprint. If you host a green event, you can effectively improve your organization’s standing as a leader in eco-friendly event planning. You will show attendees that you take active steps to decrease your carbon footprint and the environment matters to you.
4. Better Stakeholder Partnerships
Businesses tend to seek out event planners whose values align with their organizations. Reducing your carbon footprint will draw the attention of stakeholders who believe in eco-friendly practices. It will lead you to foster better business partnerships and improve your bottom line. Individuals who live sustainably will also likely support your business.
5. Pioneering Change in the Industry
Corporate events of any size tend to generate excessive waste. With the right resources and tools, you can host a sustainable event that is enjoyable and leads to reduced or zero waste. It will set the right example for other businesses in your industry to follow suit and adopt this much-needed mindset shift.
15 Strategies for Hosting Sustainable Corporate Events
Planning an eco-friendly event might feel overwhelming, but the following fifteen strategies will help you successfully host a sustainable corporate gathering:
1. Create an Eco-Friendly Event Policy & Budget
First, create a clear-cut policy and budget that include every step you must take to host a sustainable corporate gathering. Having a well-laid-out and comprehensive policy from the get-go will help you stick to the mission.
It will ensure your team, sponsors, vendors, venue, and stakeholders are on the same page regarding the event planning. You can ensure every party works cohesively as part of one unit and knows your expectations.
2. Organize a Virtual Event
According to a recent study, the travel-induced carbon footprint of a single conference can amount to over 2000 tons of greenhouse gases. It’s not surprising when you consider the air and ground travel involved to ensure every guest and participant can attend the event. So, what’s the solution to avoid this preposterous carbon footprint? Virtual events!
When you consider food production, hotel and accommodation energy, transportation fuel and costs, and venue energy, you will realize that a virtual event cuts down on all these expenditures and energy consumption. While a virtual event still has its own carbon footprint from network data transfer, use of computers, etc., it’s significantly better than the alternative.
After all, sustainability is about making conscious choices to create positive environmental impacts. So, if you’re arranging a virtual event, inform your attendees in advance. You can help them get involved in the eco-friendly nature of the event by sharing your data and asking them to share their own insights.
3. Opt for a Hybrid Event Model
If you cannot go virtual, your next best option is to organize a hybrid event. Whether it’s a conference or a large-scale corporate event, you can have a part of your audience join the event virtually. Ideally, these should be people who would need to travel long distances to come to the conference.
The decreased energy emission from reduced air and land travel and accommodation of guests will help you achieve some of your sustainability goals. You can also choose a smaller venue and less food as you will have to accommodate and feed fewer guests. Just ensure you are accommodating your virtual guests and have different activities planned for them to be as much a part of the event as the attendees who could join you at the venue.
4. Choose a Green & Accessible Event Venue
A green event venue is an actively sustainable venue that meets specific sustainability guidelines and standards. Choose a venue that will make it easier for you to host an eco-friendly corporate gathering instead of hampering your event planning.
Firstly, book a venue with the following appropriate sustainability certifications:
- IACC Green Star
- Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design (LEED)
- Managers Association Building Environment Standards (BOMA BEST)
If you cannot find a venue with these certifications, choose one that fulfills your sustainability requirements. The venue must use renewable energy sources and recyclable utensils and platters. It should use the best energy efficiency practices and maximize its use of natural lighting.
Asking the right vetting questions will help you choose the right venue. Consider if the site is accessible by public transport and is within walking distance of the attendees’ hotels. If your guests have to travel long distances to reach the venue, it will only increase the event’s carbon footprint.
Ultimately, go with a venue that does not shy away from sharing its corporate social responsibility and is committed to sustainable practices.
5. Work with Sustainable Event Vendors
Collaborate with sustainable event vendors if you want your event to be truly green. Whether you are working with a rental company or a caterer, don’t forget to ask the right questions.
Ask them about the environmentally-friendly options they carry and how their values align with your sustainability practices. For décor, confirm if the items are recyclable. When choosing food items for your menu, work with locally sourced, seasonal, and organic ingredients for both food and drinks.
Additionally, make sure the packaging and presentation of the food served at the event are all plastic and paper-free. At the very least, ensure every item is packed and served minimally in recyclable materials, containers, and plates.
6. Offer Eco-Friendly Event Transportation Service
As we have already established, travel is a major culprit when it comes to event carbon emissions. Offering eco-friendly transportation methods, such as shuttles, ridesharing or carpooling, and public transit, might just be the solutions you need to reduce travel stress and emissions.
So, think of the eco-friendly ways in which you can help your guests arrive at the venue. Try to keep on-site parking only for differently-abed individuals. Provide walking route maps to your event attendees. Lastly, you can incentivize public transport and email the attendees the routes they can take and the fair prices they will have to pay. You can also include a link to a fare calculator in your emails. You can also offer discounted event tickets or benefits to people who choose carpooling or public transport.
7. Combine Your Accommodations with Your Venue
If possible, choose a venue that also offers accommodations. This way, when you check the establishment’s sustainability credentials, you can ensure the accommodations follow the same standards. Moreover, it will help you significantly reduce transportation costs and energy emissions.
8. Use Digital Event Invites
Encourage a paper-free approach among your team when planning an eco-friendly corporate event. A great way to do that is by using digital or e-invites. It will result in seamless event accessibility. You can include all your corporate event outings, dinners, conferences, product launches, networking sessions, workshops, and other key information in the e-tickets.
New York event planners will also have endless customization options for the invite and will be able to reach audiences far and wide. You can either email the invites to a select few guests or promote the event by posting the invite on your social media platforms. The latter works wonders for a large-scale trade show-type event.
9. Design an App for Your Corporate Events
While designing an app might sound time-consuming and counterproductive, it’s the best thing you can do if your event is a biannual or annual affair. In-person events have traditionally relied on disposable forms of communication and marketing, such as paper brochures, print banners, signs, business cards, etc. Even with regular events, companies end up using new resources and print and paper materials to promote their events, resulting in waste.
However, if you use an event app or website, you can design an interactive digital schedule for the event. You can create tailored event invites and maps for the event attendees. You can also design digital brochures and other marketing materials without wasteful printing.
Centralize everything and make all the information available in one place for your event attendees so that they can access anything they need on the app. Create QR codes that simplify the check-in process. You can also create QR codes for our products if your event is for a product launch.
With in-app registration, you can also avoid disposable plastic badges and stickers. Moreover, you can also use your website or app to promote upcoming events!
10. Focus on Recycling Practices
Be specific about your recycling expectations with your chosen venue and caterers. Ask if they can recycle cardboard, paper, glass, tin, cooking oil, etc. Confirm if there’s additional pricing associated with the recycling efforts and if they partner with any recycling facilities. Do your own research as well.
If the venue demands additional recycling costs, create a sponsorship opportunity around it. Partner with sustainability-conscious businesses who would love to help you reduce your carbon footprint as long as you include their logo and name in your branding material.
Moreover, place waste and recycling bins throughout the event venue. Make sure the bins are marked appropriately. You can also donate leftover conference or corporate event materials to a non-profit you support. Encourage your event attendees to be more responsible at recycling the materials they use.
11. Donate Leftover Food From Your Corporate Events
Despite your best efforts to ensure not a morsel of food goes to waste at your event, you might have leftover food at the end of the day. Rather than throwing away perfectly edible food so that it ends up in a landfill, donate everything edible to a shelter.
It will effectively help you provide free meals while reducing food waste. You can research reputable local food banks and shelters to donate the leftovers. As for the scraps, you can donate them to an animal shelter or farm that accepts them.
12. Keep Recyclable Giveaways
Ditch the old-school plastic swag bags and welcome eco-friendly totes and reusable bags for giveaways. While we understand the importance of giveaways as they act as marketing items beyond the event, you need to ensure the gifts you keep for your guests are recyclable and eco-friendly.
Consider adding reusable drinking straws, bamboo products, reusable travel tumblers, recyclable wearable items, and eco-friendly notebooks to your giveaway bags. Avoid anything that will end up adding to the disastrously growing landfills. You can work with eco-friendly businesses to sponsor these giveaways.
Alternatively, you can opt for digital giveaway bags, which work especially well for hybrid and digital events. You can email these virtual gift bags to your event attendees and fill them with e-tickets, discounts, and access to freebies, resulting in no waste!
13. Choose Sustainable Décor for Corporate Events
There is no shame in using rented or upcycled décor. In fact, you can use it as part of your sustainable event messaging and encourage more businesses to follow suit. Rental companies loan out their furniture and other décor items to be used repeatedly, and you can easily rework them to suit your event.
So, make sure you work with décor items that will not go to waste. Steer clear of floral arrangements that use sponge-like foams and other plastic materials in your décor. Use recyclable and durable furniture and décor for your event while ensuring you work with a vendor whose goals and perspective align with yours. Just ensure you don’t use subpar materials, which can damage your reputation.
14. Share Eco-Friendly Messaging with Event Attendees and Stakeholders
Robust and comprehensive event marketing is an integral part of the success of a corporate gathering. If you are organizing a sustainable corporate event, share the green steps you are taking to make it possible with the world. You can use this positive messaging to encourage more sponsors and businesses to work with you and get more people to attend your event.
However, ensure you are not too preachy or holier-than-thou in your event messaging. Keep things simple and clear to understand without any air of superiority. Encourage the event attendees and exhibitors to engage in eco-friendly activities while at the event. Share your intentions and messaging via your website, email, social media, videos, and other digital means.
15. Encourage Others in Your Industry to Organize Sustainable Corporate Events
After your event is a roaring success, encourage other businesses and NY event planners to organize eco-friendly corporate gatherings. Post your event’s highlights on your social media platforms, create reels that showcase the event’s success, and make listicles of the steps you took to ensure the event was sustainable. It will help other businesses in your industry follow your example.
The Bottom Line About Sustainable Corporate Events
Organizing a sustainable corporate event doesn’t have to be challenging. Follow the suggested steps mentioned above to ensure your gathering is an eco-friendly success. Be transparent about your processes and work with businesses, vendors, and venue owners who share the same values as you. It will encourage you to make the right, environmentally-conscious decisions throughout the event planning and execution process.
If you wish to strengthen your business objectives and discover lucrative strategic partnerships to help your business grow, participate in The Event Planner Expo 2023. It’s a must-attend conference for businesses, executives, marketing professionals, event planners, PR experts, and anyone involved in the events industry.
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