Last October, the Green Meeting Industry Council launched a campaign titled “Ask for It”. The intention of this campaign is  to promote the APEX/ASTM Environmentally Sustainable Event Standards.

These standards (APEX/ASTM Environmentally Sustainable Event Standards) give meeting and event organizers a comprehensive roadmap for improving and measuring event sustainability for years to come.

Standard Benefits

These standards have three major benefits:

  1. They break down the sustainability technical language, making it easier to understand
  2. When event planning, these standards give you a strategy and an implementation guide to help ask relevant questions and
  3. They give you scoring forms to track and report progress to your stakeholders.

To access the tool, visit the Sustainable Meeting Planner (SMPP) website. This document is not free, but a special CIC discount code CIC50 is available to receive a 50% discount on your order..

Here is a brief video explaining the benefits of the program:

Standard Goal

The goal is simple: encourage event planners to ask suppliers about their sustainable practices.

After the initial assessment, the next step is to register the event and certify it at whatever level you find achievable to comply with the standards. This is a call to action for suppliers in the event and meeting industry to become more green.

“Planners have the power and the ability to implement change and push the industry along. The GMIC mission has always been to work to transform the event industry towards a more sustainable way of operating and a more responsible practice of managing and executing events. The Ask For It campaign is one more step in fulfilling that mission,” said Lindsay Arell,
Strategist and Principle at Arell Logic and GMIC Board Member.

Measurements of a Sustainable Audiovisual Rental Firm

You can insert the following information into your RFP and/or ask the following questions:

Our event planning team strives to be a leader in meeting and event sustainability. As such we are focusing our efforts in the areas of: waste management, energy, air quality, water and community partners.

To meet our goals in these areas we are pursuing the ASTM/APEX Standard for Sustainable Meeting and Events. As part of this process we are giving preference to suppliers who are able to help us meet these goals If you do not currently apply these sustainable practices to your operation, please indicate your willingness and ability to implement these practices for our event.

Is your organization currently certified or pursuing certification for the ASTM/APEX Standard Specification for Evaluation and Selection of Audio Visual and Production for Environmentally Sustainable Meetings, Events,Trade Shows, and Conferences?

YES – Please provide a copy of the certification
NO – Please review the following criteria:

  • Do you have a written environmental sustainability policy, signed by your executive or general manager?
  • Do you designate one or more staff members to implement your sustainability initiative?
  • Do you have a twelve-month waste diversion, disposal and energy use baseline?
  • Have you reduced hazardous materials consumption by 10% or more?
  • Have you developed a written energy reduction plan that establishes objectives based on the results of energy assessments or audits?
  • Do you turn off or place in eco-mode all equipment at the end of the work day?

For more information about these questions, please click on the following link:

http://c.ymcdn.com/sites/www.gmicglobal.org/resource/collection/6349EC58-C7C3-47C5-8D65-6C6F7BF2FE91/AFI_AV.pdf

​SmartSource Rentals is available to help you make your next meeting sustainable! Give them a call today at 800.888.8686 to learn more about their environmental policies and how their total technology solutions are green!