The European Association of Event Centres (EVVC) and Green Globe Certification are jointly developing a special certification process for sustainability in event houses. This has been agreed upon by Joachim König (EVVC President and Director of the Hannover Congress Centrum), Matthias Schultze (EVVC Vice President and Managing Director World Conference Centre Bonn) and Dr. Peter Zimmer (FUTOUR Tourism Consulting) as representatives of Green Globe in mid-January 2010. “Worldwide, the demand for green meetings, incentives, conferences and events (Green MICE) is rising. With the agreed co-operation, verifiable and practical criteria will be established for the first time in this important industry sector,” said Dr. Peter Zimmer, a long-standing expert in this field and accredited Green Globe auditor.
For several years, Green Globe Certification (www.greenglobecertification.com) has gained experience in the certification of hotels and tourist facilities around the world and examines all aspects of sustainability in the businesses during the process. A total of 125 criteria are currently assessed in the houses - together with the EVVC these will now be supplemented by further specific criteria for the event industry. The new label “Green Globe / EVVC” will therefore currently be the only way to achieve a sustainability certification specifically for event companies.
The new specifications will be designed for the industry by a number of EVVC members who are already in contact with Green Globe and have agreed to bring their ideas and thoughts into the development process as so-called “pilots”.
The Green Globe / EVVC certification system is very simple and is solely internet-based. To obtain the certificate at least 51 percent of the criteria must be met. These will be assessed by an independent auditor. The results are stored in a database and are therefore always available. The audit is conducted every 2 years so that participants have sufficient time to work on unmet criteria. In this way, the participating houses not only receive certification through the system, but also get involved in a sustained optimization and improvement process.
“For us it was very important to find an experienced partner that gives us all the opportunity to develop our learning,” said EVVC President Joachim König. “Probably only a few houses in our industry know where they currently stand in the process of sustainability and also how they might want to improve it. Green Globe / EVVC will be the right partner. In addition, we are sure that many houses will save money due to the proposed Green Globe / EVVC optimization measures - a nice side effect that makes the topic of ecology even more attractive.”
The need to develop a certification especially for the event industry, which at the same time represents a guide for policy recommendations, was established at the first Green Meeting conference in Bonn in March 2009. Representatives of all aspects of the event industry met here for the first time to jointly discuss a common approach to improve sustainable thinking and behaviour. The EVVC at that time made a commitment to develop a certifiable approach.
“We are very pleased that through the Green Globe cooperation we were able to so quickly come up with such a practical approach for our houses,” said Matthias Schultze, Vice President EVVC. “The responsibility towards future generations obliges us to act on a broad basis in the industry. Our certification system requires relatively little effort - both in temporal and monetary terms - and thus gives each house, no matter what scale, the opportunity to participate. Nevertheless, changes are carried out deliberately and verifiably. We don’t want to just camouflage the problems of the industry but instead we want to change peoples’ attitudes.”
