How to Pick the Right Venue for Sustainable Events
Events are often one of the biggest culprits when it comes to the impact on the environment.
When you think about all the paper, plastic, and electricity that’s unnecessarily wasted, it becomes clear that the events industry needs to change if it wants to keep up with the times and play its part in reducing humanity’s impact on the world.
And one of the first steps you can take when organizing your events is choosing a venue that is in line with values of sustainability.
After all, venues are the ones that dictate a lot of the choices with their supply and management practices, so if you find the right venue, making your event sustainable will become a much easier task.
So, to help you get started on the process of finding the right venue for your needs, here are three tips that can be helpful.
1. Choose an easily accessible location
The first thing to look at when looking for a sustainable venue is to consider the location – it won’t matter how eco-friendly your venue may be if your guests will have to travel a long way via airplanes or cars to get there.
Ideally, you or your event management services provider wants to find a venue that can be accessed by public transportation or at least a short plane ride, but understandably, that may not always be possible.
If you’re hosting an international or nationwide event that requires people to come in from various locations, at least try to find one that’s near an airport, a train station, or another hub of transportation so that people don’t have a hard time reaching the destination, no matter where they might be coming from.
2. Look for Venues that Use Renewable Energy
Today, more and more venues are beginning to understand the importance of using renewable energy for their buildings, so if you want to emphasize that your event is sustainable, finding a site that uses solar or even wind energy can be a great option.
Although this may be limiting the number of choices, there are plenty of free venue finders or event management services providers who can help you put together a potential list of options that meets your demands.
Today, solar power is more efficient than ever before, and it doesn’t take much effort for venues to use it to satisfy at least the more basic electricity demands such as lighting and some basic electronics.
The venue can always fall back on the electricity supply of the local grid, so you’re not risking anything by prioritizing these types of venues while still making a difference in terms of your event’s impact to the environment.
3. Make sure the venue takes sustainability seriously
Finally, when choosing a venue for sustainable events, you need to ensure that the venue takes being more eco-friendly seriously.
You don’t want to go through all the trouble of putting together a more environmentally-conscious event, and then see that the venue doesn’t take any steps into that direction.
For instance, when talking to potential sites or when setting up your list of requirements for the free venue finders that you’re working with, make sure you mention things like having reusable plates and utensils, utilizing natural light to reduce lighting requirements, and managing the needs for electricity on a need-only basis as some of the aspects that are important to you.
Additional Resources:
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The Art of the Follow-up: How to Build Relationships From Conferences
*This post has been written by guest blogger, Sarah Hill, Content Writer from Seven Events Ltd. Seven Events is the leading event company specialized in managing corporate events, incentive travel, and conferences.