If someone asked you what happened in 2011 that helped redefine the meetings industry, what might you say? Is it the continued international economic woes? Or the tragic effects of the earthquake and tsunami that critically damaged a nuclear plant in Japan? Or the continued natural disasters that seem to be growing in frequency and intensity? Or the explosion of social media usage?

Certainly, any or all of those answers would have merit. Yet, there are three individual but related bodies of work that are likely to alter how our industry approaches sustainability. They are the APEX/ASTM Environmentally Responsible Event Standards (ASTM Standard), ISO 20121 Event Organisers Sustainable Management Standard (ISO 20121) and the Global Reporting Initiative’s Event Organisers Sector Supplement (EOSS). You may have heard about them but may not understand their value or potential impact.

Each of the standards serves a related but different purpose. They can be used together or separately. The ASTM Standard was designed to provide planners and suppliers with specific criteria and expectations that are measurable and consistent. They are checklists of specifications for each of the nine areas of events: accommodation, audio visual, communications, destination selection, exhibits, F&B, meeting venue, on-site office and transport.

When implemented by planner and supplier, the event is deemed an environmentally sustainable one. The idea is that the standards will represent the minimum expectation of performance an event must achieve to legitimately be called an environmentally sustainable one. The standards will allow us to compare the performance of multiple events equally – apples to apples so to speak.

ISO 20121, a derivative of the British Standard 8901, is a sustainable event management process. ISO 20121 is designed to provide a process by which organisations integrate sustainable practices into their operations. The standard has a prescriptive process organisations must follow, though it does not prescribe specifically what or how an event or organisation should perform. It gives organisations flexibility to determine their individual level of engagement in implementing sustainable practices. It’s worthwhile for organisations to adopt because its structure fosters consistency and improvement.

The third body of work is the EOSS, which is in essence a protocol for reporting on sustainable event practices. The GRI EOSS task force is working on a template to assist organisations in understanding how to create a C-level report.

The depth and breadth of engagement with the standards is up to the industry as they are voluntary. They will most likely need adjustment and modification in the first year. But as organisations work with them, it will be critical to the success of adoption if feedback and solutions are presented to improve them. Few companies will adopt all three standards. However, they provide three related, yet different, entry points for organisers to engage in sustainable practices and mark a new era for our industry.