ADVANCE PLANNING London was the first Olympic host city to incorporate sustainability in its plans from the very beginning. For instance, the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games’ (LOCOG) original plan was to locate the Games in East London, in a mostly blighted area of abandoned industrial sites, in order to rebuild a community that would sustain the test of time. “From the outset,” Stubbs said, “we wanted to use the Games to regenerate East London and bring it to a better level.” And because LOCOG didn’t want to build facilities that
would have no legacy use, many temporary structures were used during the Olympics. Those permanent structures that were built had an established purpose post-Games. For instance, at Olympic Village and Paralympic Village, more than 2,000 residential units were constructed to house athletes. After the completion of the Games, the Village will be transformed into a mixed-tenure residential neighborhood, incorporating a range of affordable housing options. In addition to demolishing and constructing responsibly,
the organizing committee created a detailed vision for food, waste, and sustainable sourcing that would govern the decisions of all vendors and stakeholders throughout the process of organizing and conducting the event. Here’s how LOCOG’s sustainability plans can translate to meetings and events of all kinds.
ZERO WASTE As at any large event, foodservice presented a huge challenge to LOCOG’s sustainability vision. Stubbs and his team worked with stakeholders to develop a food vision that included an emphasis on sustainably sourced products, or those that are sourced with environmental, social, and ethical issues in mind. That meant the foods that were served were largely organic, fair trade, or locally sourced. On location, signage informed consumers which products were organic or fair trade. As well as ensuring that sustainable foods were served,
London was the first host city to publish an all-embracing zero-waste vision — a goal of sending zero waste to landfills. A complex strategy covered food-packaging regulations, a system of waste and recycling containers, communication and signage, and the identification of reprocessing options and markets. According to Stubbs, the committee viewed all waste as a potential resource, which governed its policies of finding ways to reuse, recycle, and compost every item possible. LOCOG also instituted stringent sustainability regula-
tions for foodservice providers, and all catering operations and foodservice companies agreed to them, including McDonald’s and Coca-Cola. One of the regulations required all foodservice businesses to use the same packaging vendor, so there were only a few basic types of food-waste materials
76 PCMA CONVENE OCTOBER 2012
Test Time Here’s how to earn your CEU hour.
Once you finish reading this CMP Series article, read the following material:
› “What’s New in Green Meetings?,” a blog post by Nancy Zavada, CMP, MeetGreen principal and co-founder of the Green Meeting Industry Council (GMIC), at meetgreen.com/ whats-new-in-green-meetings.
› The 2011 European Ecological Federation Congress Sustainability Report (a case study), at convn.org/ EEF-Congress.
To earn one hour of CEU credit, visit pcma.org/convenecmp to answer questions about the information contained in this CMP Series article and the additional material.
The Certified Meeting Professional (CMP) is a registered trademark of the Convention Industry Council.
Waste Not Each type of waste material was color-coded with matching waste bins to help fans put their trash in the correct container.