Keeping Your Corporate Event in The Black by Keeping It 'Green'

Crystal Grave

By: Crystal Grave - CEO and President , Snappening

Categories: Environment, Marketing and Brand Development

It's time to reduce, reuse, and recycle not only your plastics, cans and newspapers, but also your meeting materials and office supplies for your next corporate meeting or event. Keeping your events green is an easy and affordable option for any corporate meeting.

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Here are some ways you can make your next Indianapolis corporate meeting a sustainable one:

New Age, New Name Badge Ideas
Reduce the number of name badges you provide by utilizing an online check-in system or through reusing badges or badge stock from previous meetings. This simple change will diminish these costs and those of buying new lanyards and nametags. If online systems aren’t your forte, there are still other options. Save some trees through making sure you print out all of your supplies on recycled paper. Make name badge creation part of the overall green strategy by offering non-traditional badge stock like newspaper, paper grocery sacks or other reused sources. Reward creativity by providing markers and other touches to combine your corporate meeting with a creative flair that allows individualism.

Buy Local
Support local businesses and have the comfort of knowing you’re getting great quality products from fellow Hoosiers. Telling your vendors about your overall green meeting strategy will also create new concepts. Each vendor may have a variety of ways they can help you reach your goal, and perhaps serve both their green strategies as well as yours.

When you’re finished with the event, instead of throwing out promotional packages and mini desserts, donate them to a local shelter or recycling center. That way you’ll not only be earth-friendly, but you’ll also be making a difference in lives of local residents at the same time. For example, Second Helpings, an Indianapolis-based organization, gladly rescues excess prepared and perishable food, transforms it into gourmet meals and distributes it to over 60 different service-oriented companies that feed those in need. (Please note, it will be important to understand the logistics for food-sharing or food reuse in advance to ensure your program meets various requirements.)

Philanthropic Ideas
Providing recycling bins for your participants to drop their binders and programs in throughout the event is an easy way to get everyone involved. Teachers' Treasures is a philanthropic organization for local Indianapolis children in need of school supplies that would greatly benefit from all of the extra supplies after your next green meeting. To make recycling even easier, Keep Indianapolis Beautiful offers recycling/reusing guides and provides a map of local drop-off stations. Don’t forget to mention your green meeting prep on social media and look for suggestions from your attendees, followers, fans and suppliers. The more you talk about your green efforts, the larger and more impactful they become.

Green Certified Options
A number of properties in Indianapolis have been “Certified Green” by various national governing bodies and provide great sustainable facilities for you to hold your next power meeting, conference or reception. Create or become your own “Green Team” in order to brainstorm ways to further reduce your amount of waste and find fun, new ways of turning your corporate event green. One idea is to use an edible arrangement as the centerpieces for your tables, which will not only be visually appealing, but can also serve as a mid-meeting snack.

Get Creative
Avoid serving individual packets of things like salt, pepper, cream and sugar and pre-serving individual beverages when unnecessary. Instead, provide bulk containers of each for your green meeting attendees or move to pitcher-based, self-service stations. Consider decorating those containers or pitchers with informative and eco-friendly sayings so guests will have some food for thought. You can also limit the number of promotional items given away. Instead, choose to award special eco-friendly prizes.

Now you can plan your next corporate event and make it green in a snap! If you are still looking for more green ideas, you may also find value in checking out the Green Meeting Industry Council's list of best practices.

For more information, visit www.snappening.com.

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