You’ve been tasked with putting together the next offsite for your team, but how can you minimise the environmental impact of your away day?
More than just a box ticking exercise, here’s some real-world tips for reducing the impact of your meeting without reducing the quality or effectiveness.
1. Reduce travel distance and offset
Group travel rather than individual cars
Travel by train, bulk book carriage
Choose venues closer to your business
Carbon offset your travel
2. Minimise printing
Use business cards as name badges
Send eTickets/eInvites
Hire iPads rather than supply branded stationary
3. Bring water bottles
Provide water stations
Fresh tea and coffee rather than coffee pods
Don’t pre-fill glasses at the table
Reusable metal spoons rather than stirring sticks
No single use sachets
4. Ditch the biscuits
Ask the venue to swap individual serving biscuits for a biscuit box
Switch the single wrapped sweets and chocs for party packs
Swap Single wrapped sandwiches/sausage rolls for platters
Can surplus food be put to good use?
5. Choose post conference activities wisely
Look for sustainable activities such as treasure hunts, archery, falconry, etc.
Steer clear of fossil fuel based vehicle activities, go electric!
Source activities locally
Ensure that activity suppliers have an environmental and sustainability policy in place.
Of course, not everything will work for every scenario, every team or every client, but a small adjustment here and there will add up in the long run and, in many cases can actually reduce the cost of the event (ed: anyone else noticed the price of venue supplied bottled water…).
