Gradually it seems that the events industry and, more importantly, individuals are starting to take seriously the notion that the event managament process needs to be sustainable.

Politcially things started to change in 2007 when chief environmental sceptic George W Bush admitted that global warming was caused by mankind. This has slowly trickled down to ordinary folk and was compounded in February 2009 when scientists revealed that the Polar ice caps are melting twice as fast as they were in the 1970's.

It may be a coincidence, but since February we've seen increased interest in our "Green Thinking" programme, which we've had in place since 2005. This is The Conference People's own mission to try and encourage our clients to consider the impact of their event on the environment, taking into account the registration process (making it paperless through our online delegate Management system uBook), looking at delegate travel, helping find venues with strong environmental policies and generally looking at ways to provide an amazing planet friendly event.

Additionally, thanks to the recession, everyone is realising that being green can save you money. There are genuine savings to be made by making use of online services, cutting down on printing and reducing wasteful delegate packs. Encouraging the use of public transport also (usually) reduces costs and CO2 emmissions for the event.

So now finance is involved it really becomes more than just helping the environment. The key to this industry making a difference is to be SUSTAINABLE financially, socially AND environmentally. As a business, at The Conference People we use this Triple Bottom Line approach to everything we do, even if our clients aren't interested in holding a sustainable event.

We're hoping the demand for sustainable events will continue and that event management agencies, venues and production companies looking to cash in on the trend, do so with integrity. To help us keep one step ahead, we're going through the BS8901 (British Standard for Sustainable Event Managment System) assessment at the moment. Its really just proving everything we've already been doing for the past 4 years, but I'll let you know how we get on over the next few weeks.