VisitDenmark and the Green Meetings Industry Council launched a new Meeting the Future initiative on the United Nations (UN) World Environment Day, 5 June, this year, aimed at consolidating the sustainability efforts being done around the world by the meetings industry.

As host nation for the next UN Climate Change Conference (COP 15) in December 2009, VisitDenmark, the official tourism organisation of Denmark, has joined forces with the Green Meeting Industry Council (GMIC) to unite the great efforts of meetings industry professionals worldwide and make meetings more sustainable in the future.

These days, the biggest challenge of the global meetings industry – transportation providers, destination management corporations, agencies, hotel chains, meeting venues, trade associations, etc – is to incorporate elements of sustainability within its industry. To date, there has been no single approach to ensuring this happening. Many major players are approaching the subject from different angles, but with little cohesion and/or a single point of direction.

Working together
Meeting the Future was developed to create a unified, integrated and cohesive global response to climate change from the meetings industry. VisitDenmark met with the GMIC at the latter’s annual conference in Vancouver in February, together with a range of major players within the meetings industry, and agreed to address the issues raised by VisitDenmark and create some tangible solutions to address the challenge.

The key objectives will be to bring together the meetings industry leadership to discuss, create and agree a unified global response to climate change and to produce an industry positioning paper that was presented at the UN conference.

Industry statement
Following the Vancouver conference, VisitDenmark appointed a Meeting the Future steering committee, including representatives from, among others, MCI, Reed Travel Exhibitions and Meeting Strategies Worldwide, which prepared a first draft of the industry statement. The final result will be presented at th 2009 UN Climate Change Conference (COP15) in Copenhagen.

To ensure that Meeting the Future initiative truly reflects the needs of the whole meetings industry, the steering committee is looking to extend participation in this scheme to a much wider audience by inviting organisations and associations worldwide to participate. Invitations to engage in this process will be going out shortly.

Long-term solutions
Meeting the Future is about engaging and motivating meetings professionals to reduce the environmental impact of staging meetings in the future. VisitDenmark and the GMIC are happy to set the stage for this and to create awareness about the new scheme. We deliberately aim high with the ratification of an industry positioning paper at the UN COP15 in 2009.

Hopefully, this strategy will increase the understanding of corporate social responsibility issues within our own industry and help create innovative solutions for reducing climate change within the global meetings industry community on a long-term basis.

Jonathan Cohen is marketing manager – conference and incentive travel at VisitDenmark and project coordinator of Meeting the Future. To get involved in Meeting the Future, email jc@visitdenmark.com