The last couple of weeks have been very exciting and fun! I did a lot of nature things like camp at Arches National Park and white water raft down the Colorado River in UT.
During all that fun, there was some business. I attended Meeting Professional International’s (MPI) World Education Conference (WEC). It was mostly about networking and getting the Meeting Revolution name out there but I did attend one educational session that I wanted to share. It was taught by Fiona Pelham of Organise This based in England. She spoke about BS 8901which is a sustainable event management system. It is about implementing a way of working whcih considers environmental, economical, and social impacts. BS 8901 can be a self-certified or externally certified standard and was used at the MPI European Conference back in April 2008. BS 8901 is a three-phased system: planning, implementation and review.
Phase 1
Phase 1 includes appointing a Sustainability Champion, identifying issues specific to your situation, creating a development policy which includes objectives, and engaging with all stakeholders.
The MPI conference objectives included:
*To raise awareness and provide education on sustainability within the UK meetings and events industry
*To create a benchmark and measure the level of sustainability achieved at The European Meetings and Events Conference 2008
*To achieve BS 8901 Sustainable Event Management System
MPI’s stake holder engagement included: e-mails, conference calls, phone calls and site visits. Although every stakeholder was individually made aware of the sustainability objectives the most effective method of communication and education was a series of educational workshops. Stakeholders who attended the Positive Impact workshop demonstrated a clearer understanding of how to incorporate sustainability into their ways of working than those contacted through other means.
Positive Impact, a not-for-profit project, provided education on issues including waste, energy, transport, food, certification and community involvement. By providing this education in conjunction with MPI UK chapter, the organization left a legacy of suppliers educated about sustainability.
The BS 8901 Phase 1 assessment too place before the event so the conference could be marketed as BS 8901 Phase 1 compliant.
Phase 2
Phase 2 includes supply chain management, roles and resources, operational controls.
Implementing BS8901 at the conference required management level buy in from MPI President and CEO Bruce MacMillan, “MPI is on a journey to sustainability. And we want to share our story with others in order to learn from everyone. The opportunity to work in a way that was certified under the BS 8901 was a natural fit with our event at London ExCel the fit made the decision to go ahead an easy one – one that was supported not only by me as President and CEO but by our entire community.”
Phase 2 for the MPI conference included the collection of measurements onsite by a team of volunteers from the conference who received training on how to measure sustainability. MPI used an online sustainable event management tool to monitor their measurements. See results below:
SUSTAINABILITY MEASUREMENTS from www.eventsustainability.com
Item Measurement
Food and beverage waste 0.607 tonnes
General waste 2.458 tonnes
Electricity 21059.9 KwH
Gas 30301 KwH
Water 2976 M3
Delegate travel mileage 251,208 miles
Food and beverage mileage 20,742.51 miles
Recycled mileage 173.6 miles
Other mileage 13,699.15 miles
BS 8901 does not specify numeric measurement levels which must be achieved because each event, venue and supplier will need to measure according to their specific issues.
The Phase 2 assessment took place on the event site through a series of interviews between the certifier and event stakeholders.
Phase 3
Phase 3 focuses on reviewing compliance and performance in relation to achieving your specific objectives.
Measuring sustainability for the MPI conference aimed to encourage stakeholders to begin monitoring and minimizing their impacts in the future. Phase 3 also includes demonstraiting how what was learned will be taken into account and omplemented effectively within the company, creating new targets for continual improvements in their way of working sustainably.
Conclusion
Implementing BS 8901 at an event reflects an entirely new way of thinking about sustainability in the event industry. It is a great opportunity for the UK event industry to adopt the standard as it is internationally recognized, demonstrating Britain could be leading in the arena of sustainable event management.
The MPI conference left a legacy in sustainable events as MPI’s event mangement system delivering the event was the first to go through a third party certificaton process for BS 8901, and through education stakeholders via Position Impace. Stakeholder engagement for the conference was a challenge due to the size of the event, however the increasing interest in sustainability was apparent throught the team of volunteers who dedicated their time onsite to help meausre sustainability.
The success of implementing BS 8901 has resulted in ongoing discussions within MPI to plan their future events in compliance to the standard as a management sstem, and not just as an achievement for one event.
In addition, the outcome of BS 8901 achievements from the conference have resulted with Swiss Tourism, looking to have a number of venues and suppliers certified in BS 8901 in the near future.
Further Information
MPI: www.positiveimpactevents.co.uk
Organise This: www.organisethis.co.uk
BSI: www.bsigroup.com/bs8901
Oh and did you check out the latest edition of the MPI magazine One + yet? Not yet? Check out this article: http://www.mpiweb.org/cms/mpiweb/mpicontent.aspx?id=19374
