One third of event planners refuse to use plastic dishes at events

Only one third of event planners try to reduce the amount of litter that is left after events, as revealed by the survey held by ABT-ACTE Russia shortly before the ACTE Moscow Executive Forum. 65 representatives of corporate buyers and business travel service providers took part in it.

About 30% of respondents say they do not use plastic dishes at their meetings and conferences. At the same time, about 57% are familiar with sustainable development, and 36% have heard about Green Key.

Less than a quarter of the respondents take into account environmental issues when they choose hotels or other MICE service providers. For 40% of forum participants, environmental friendliness of goods or services is directly connected to their price: environmentally friendly means expensive. But in the course of discussion the participants came to the conclusion that if you use a train instead of a plane for trips on short distances, and if you use rail ground transport instead of bus transfers, you could considerably decrease the harmful effect not only on the environment, but on the corporate budget as well.

“When you choose a conference venue, you should correlate the length of the meeting and the length of the transfer. For example, in Geneva a trip from the airport to the city centre takes 6 minutes, and in London – 75 minutes, and this time is reimbursed by the employer! This is why, when you choose an event venue, pay attention to the fact how long the transfer is – you will save time and money this way, Natalia Sizova, marketing manager of Switzerland Convention and Incentive Bureau said. “We have had only one request from Russian companies so far with an accent on the environmental aspect of event planning among other things. But we are convinced they will be more and more frequent”.

In her words, the attention of companies to the issues of sustainable development is becoming an important aspect in the world market. And you can see from the example of Switzerland`s travel industry, that global companies “strive to return the favour to the planet” and take into account environmental issues of event planning.

Text: Ekaterina Tropova