Organizations Band Together to Create Green Event Standards
The Convention Industry Council’s Accepted Practices Exchange (APEX) and ASTM International, a standards development organization, have partnered to define what is “green” in the meetings and events industry. The immediate goal is to organize interested groups to actively develop standards specifying environmental best practices associated with meetings, conferences and trade shows, according to the organizations.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Green Meeting Industry Council (GMIC) initiated the process. The EPA then approached ASTM to assist in the effort by developing an accredited standard, which could be adopted as the basis for a federal purchasing program focused on environmentally preferable government-run meetings and conferences.
“We feel that there will be a strong incentive for service and facility providers to adopt the green meeting standards into their business practice,” said Harry Lewis, pollution prevention division attorney for the EPA. “This will be the case as the government is one of the largest consumers of meeting services in the country and intends to adopt the standards as a measuring stick in making their spend decisions.”
The EPA will focus mainly on instituting a voluntary, market-based approach to environmental performance in the industry and furthering the government’s policy of reducing its own impact on the environment by selective use of appropriated funds.
For more information, visit www.conventionindustry.org.