This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
MICE


Waiting for the green light


Sustainability has been a hot topic for years – so why is it taking so long for the MICE industry to catch up?


By ROSE DYKINS A Bee Sustain also works with Bybi (bybi.


T THE BELLA CENTRE COPENHAGEN – Scandinavia’s largest exhibition venue – trees sprout from large pots stationed in rows along the white, polished


floor. Water is packaged in cardboard cartons rather than plastic bottles and, at lunchtime, a fresh sandwich and fruit are handed to me in a brown paper bag. When it comes to meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions (MICE), Copenhagen’s green credentials are gleaming. Some 58% of the energy used at the Bella Centre is renewable, and the Copenhagen Convention Bureau (CCB) incorporates sustainability into each event that it hosts. Its #Bee Sustain campaign (beesustain.com) aims to share the lessons it has learned from its experience running sustainable events with other professionals in the MICE industry.


86 BBT November/December 2016


dk), a social enterprise in Copenhagen that enables local organisations to set up their own apiaries, produce bespoke honey and boost the population of bees – companies involved include Copenhagen airport and Carlsberg. Bybi also employs and trains Syrian refugees as beekeepers to better integrate them into society. However, while the Danish capital


places sustainability at the heart of its MICE operations, elsewhere, championing eco-friendly events is often dismissed as ‘greenwashing’, met with resistance or not seen as a priority. And, according to the 2016 Meetings Today Trends Survey, the number of corporate event planners who think they’ll plan a green meeting this year actually decreased by 8.5 per cent compared with 2015. While most companies would agree that an environmentally friendly outlook is


important, this doesn’t necessarily translate into the way they conduct their events and conferences. “We hosted the Sustainable Brands conference in September, a global community for CSR [corporate social responsibility] and sustainability professionals,” says Ulrika Martensson, head of communications for the CCB. “I attended the same conference in London last year, and spoke with the top 50 CSR managers, and asked them if they work with sustainable event management. Not one person said yes. “If you see conferences as an extension of


your brand, and a platform to communicate what you stand for, it should be totally natural to implement sustainability, but that’s often not the case.”


DOING THE RIGHT THING So, why is there such a disconnect between what event buyers know is right, and what we actually do? A survey of MICE


BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98