Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Where Can We Meet Green? For FREE!



Probably the most important decision you will make as a green meeting planner is where to hold your event. If you choose a city that already has green venues and hotels, commercial recycling and environmentally responsible vendors, a good deal of your work is done.

If not, you could potentially need to educate the venue and hotels about practices your group requires such as recycling or a towel and sheet reuse program. If there is commercial recycling available to these properties, it is much easier to get it implemented for your meeting. Likewise, if the local convention bureau can provide you with a list of green vendors, you don’t have to research what companies to work with to provide sustainable practices.

We are often asked, “What city should I choose for my group? Who has the best green resources?” In answer to your questions, we--Meeting Strategies Worldwide--are launching our latest website tool, “Best Places to MeetGreen®.” The website provides two innovative resources, the Best Places to MeetGreen® Scorecard and Calculator, for helping meeting and event planners to select the best green destination for their group. The site is free to use and is located at http://www.bestplacestomeetgreen.com/.

The Scorecard ranks cities according to the green programs implemented by the destination’s convention and visitor’s bureau, convention center and hotels in the city’s conference package. The practices are third-party verified by Meeting Strategies Worldwide. You can sort cities by total score, city name and city size. Listings for each city include their respective section and total green scores, brief descriptions of the city and its green practices, as well as URL and contact information.

Cool, huh? Finally, a verified list of destinations for us all to use!

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