Green event tips

Today is Earth Day, and it’s an excellent opportunity for everybody to pause and ask, “how can I make a difference, make our planet better?” As a business owner and a father, I ask myself this a lot – what are some other ways in which we who plan and produce events, either professionally or informally, can reduce our carbon footprint, and help make a cleaner, healthier planet Earth?

Here are 5 useful tips which you can start using today:

• 1. Recycle More – My business is a professional trivia company in New York City, and we go through a TON of paper each year. My personal commitment is to recycle 100% of the answer sheets which we use at our events – however, you don’t need to have a team building company to do this. Every event uses paper, especially corporate events and meetings/conventions. Make a concerted effort to recycle as much as possible.

• 2. Make Better Use of Technology – Following up on the above point, why use so much paper to begin with? These days, virtually everything can be done paperless: agendas, briefing books, pamphlets, marketing brochures. You know as well as I do that half this stuff gets left behind anyway, so why print it in the first place?

• 3. Virtual RSVPs – For some events, you simply can’t avoid the “snail mail” invite. But how about the RSVP? There’s no real hard and fast etiquette rule about this – in fact, we used virtual RSVPs at my wedding. It was greener, AND so much easier to track attendance!

• 4. Arrange Transportation – Fewer cars on the road is always a good thing for the planet, and you can help by providing your attendees with a green transportation option: think shuttle bus to/from the venue from the airport or hotel, etc. You can get creative here.

• 5. Hold Your Event Outside – This isn’t always feasible, however the fact is venues use an enormous amount of energy on climate control. If you’re truly committed to creating a green event, limit the amount of fossil fuels you’re burning on environmental comfort by offering an outdoor option, which requires neither heating nor air conditioning.

There must be a million other great ideas for making events more environmentally friendly, and I’d love to hear yours! Please share in the comments section below, or via Facebook/Twitter.

Happy Earth Day!

(Image courtesy of Going Green DC)