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March 2012
Restorative Breakfast
The Gauteng Natural Step Network invites you to their next Restorative Breakfast.
The topic for this open forum discussion is “Slaying the power vampire: Efficient water heating at home“.
Energy costs are creeping up on us faster than we can cope, and usually our water heating accounts for the bulk of this cost. Most of us use power hungry electric geysers to provide us with a hot shower, yet few of us understand the impact that these silent consumers have on our cash flow and more importantly our carbon footprint.
New legislation in the building industry has made efficient heating systems mandatory in new buildings, which means that solar water heating, heat pumps and similar systems will become the norm in the near future. [Read on...]
Green Drinks
The next Green Drinks session has been planned.
When: Thursday, 29 March 2012, 7pm
Where: Il Giardino Restaurant, 44 Stanley Avenue
Topic: Gamelihle Sibanda from biomimicrySA will speak about BIOMIMICRY: ‘Imitating Life’s Genius. [Read on...]
Green Stand Awards
This year, Meetings Africa included a new stand judging category to the show’s awards: the Green Stand Award.
The Event Greening Forum compiled the criteria for the Green Stand Awards, using the event greening principles of reduce, reuse and recycle – all of which encourage one to look at the life cycle of the stand elements. Vice Chairperson Grace Stead judged all of the stands at the show to find the most sustainable one. [Read on...]
Green Stand Deposits: a good idea?
- Four student volunteers assisted the process as “Green Police”.
The Event Greening Forum implemented R500 Green Stand Deposits for stand builders at Meetings Africa 2012, which was fully refundable if the stand builders disposed of their waste appropriately in clearly marked recycling and waste bins. The intention behind this was to encourage them to be more conscious of, and take responsibility for, the waste they produce.
The simplicity of the rules was also intentional, to ensure the means of compliance was simple and clear to all.
The system worked well, especially during Build Up. Break Down is traditionally more chaotic, and so did not run as smoothly. Justin Hawes, the Chairperson of the EGF as well as MD of a stand building company Scan Display, said: “We do believe the Green Stand Deposits worked. We only had one incident during Break Down, which we managed to resolve so that all refunds were reimbursed the following week. However we did learn a lesson from the process that, if we are to do this again, we need to have more manpower during Break Down to successfully monitor the process.”
We asked all stand builders who paid a Green Stand Deposit what their feedback on the process was, and the responses were positive: [Read on...]
Climate Change Leadership Awards
Serious and irreversible climate change is now widely recognized as the biggest environmental, social and economic problem facing the globe. Beyond the usual scare mongering of melting ice caps and polar bears, climate change is the biggest threat to business sustainability and life on the planet, as we know it.
In 2008 Jeunesse Park, founder of Food & Trees for Africa and Al Gore Presenter for the Climate Reality Project in Africa, conceptualised the Climate Change Leadership Awards (CCLA) to stimulate, recognise, motivate, celebrate and reward those who are responding to the real threat of climate change in a responsible and inspiring way. The first awards were presented in 2010. Since then the CCLA has contributed significantly to inspiring and promoting awareness and action towards a low carbon economy, and thus a healthier society and a more sustainable planet.
Be a Climate Hero and support the Climate Change Leadership Awards by purchasing a Table for ten (10) at the Climate Change Leadership Awards Gala Dinner: [Read on...]
EXSA’s green stand at Meetings Africa
The Exhibition and Event Association of Southern Africa (EXSA) is one of the eight founding members of the Event Greening Forum. EXSA exhibited at the recent Meetings Africa 2012 with a stand coordinated and conceptualised by DK Design that embodied a number of green design principles, namely:
- All the stand elements were reused items from past exhibitions and which went back into stock for future reuse – therefore minimal waste was generated during build up and break down
- Items like the brochure holders were manufactured from Octanorm, a system that prides itself on it’s “green” methods
- All contractors working on the stand were already going to be in the area or on site for this event, which reduced the associated carbon footprint of taking elements of the stand to and from site
- Only energy efficient LED lighting was used
- All branding was done via slide presentations on a number of LCD screens, in lieu of printing
- The only printed handouts available on the stand were the EXSA diaries, thus reducing the amount of unnecessary hand-outs
Sue Gannon, GM of EXSA, says: “EXSA is committed to greening our industry and at the same time reducing our impact on the environment.”
Doug Rix, from DK Design, added that the stand was: “An EXSA-llent team effort by EXSA Members”.
For more information about EXSA, please visit their website, www.exsa.co.za.
Share your event greening tips and experience with us, by writing a comment in the box below, or emailing us on pippa@eventgreening.co.za.
Event Greening Forum hosts their first AGM
The Event Greening Forum hosted its first Annual General Meeting on the 29th of February at Meetings Africa.
The event went well, starting with the Chairman Report which gave feedback from the EGF’s activities in 2011 – of which there were quite a few! Three exhibitions, endorsement of two event greening handbooks (including the Gauteng Green Guide which was launched earlier that day – download it from here), seminars at tertiary institutions and involvement in event greening activities at the COP17 Climate Change Response Expo and Meetings Africa 2012.
The financial report followed – and a big thank you was given to Scan Display for their financial backing which enabled much of the above listed activities. Both of these documents can be downloaded at the bottom of this post.
Lastly, but certainly not least, we elected our new Management Committee for 2012 and would like to give a warm welcome the following people representatives: [Read on...]
Launch of Gauteng Green Events Guidelines
The Gauteng Tourism Authority launched their Event Greening Guideline at Meetings Africa. The handbook is aimed at industry role players and provides practical information for hosting events in a more sustainable manner. It includes a range of interesting case studies from Gauteng as well as additional resources. The handbook was endorsed by the main industry associations and encourages all venues and events to consider how they can reduce their environmental footprint.
Download your own copy of the handbook here, or view the digimag online here.
EGF & CMP Network at Meetings Africa
Grace Stead presenting on the GRI’s new reporting tool for events.
The Event Greening Forum (EGF) held their first AGM during Meetings Africa last week with all EGF founding members in attendance together with many exhibition visitors who joined the gathering.
With the agreement of the EGF, the CMP™ Network took the opportunity to further the various aims towards improving the knowledge base of event/meetings management as well as offering attendees the accumulation of clock hour credits. In accordance with the expanded CMP™ International Standards – the sustainable meetings domain with various sub-skills remains high on the requirements for building a professional profile as well as future CMP exams and CPD (Continuing Professional Development) for recertification. Grace Stead of the Cape Town-based Steadfast Greening, and newly-appointed EGF Vice Chairperson presented a most valuable session on the Event Sustainability Report.
The main crux of the presentation was the various methods a company can undertake to measure and monitor a variety of sustainable event aspects for submission and assessment. CMP Clock Hour Credits were available for accumulation by all attendees.
Women In Technical Production.
On the second day of Meetings Africa attendees were introduced to the steering committee of the WITP (Women in Technical Production – southern Africa). All with various qualifications in lighting, sound, rigging et al – the WITP has strong international affiliations with WISE (Women in Staging Entertainment) consisting of over 500 women in the UK and the USA.
Helen Brewer CMP, on behalf of the CMP Network SA, accepted an invitation to mentor the fledgling WITP and a motivation for CMP Bursaries for WITP members will be launched shortly. Responsible young women with extensive practical experience in technical eventing are being given the opportunity to progress into holistic event / meeting management. More than ten CMP bursary applications have been received with authentic proof of claims as per all CMP requirements.
The session ended with newly-appointed EGF Chairperson Justin Hawes reporting back on Durban’s COP 17. A fascinating well-documented series of examples was presented. It was motivating to view the outstanding contributions from South Africa on sustainability. CMP Clock Hour Credits were available for accumulation by all attendees.
