Green Versus Sustainable – People, Planet & Profit are the Difference!

Hello E4 readers and thanks for stopping back by! In the coming weeks, I will be publishing a series of blog entries to expand on each individual point presented in my original post on how to green your meetings and events.  As you may recall, my first point was to “Stop thinking Green”.

Alternatively I suggest you begin thinking about sustainability and sustainable meetings. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m certainly not any type of environmental expert.  For the longest time I actually thought that “green” and “sustainable” were interchangeable terms. But, upon further study, I soon recognized the differences.

Triple Bottom Line Accounting

Sustainability takes into account the terms, “People, Planet, Profit”. The concept encompasses more than just the planet. So, as long as we continue to limit our thinking to just “green”, we will not be looking at the entire picture of what comprises a successful and enduring business enterprise.

It is just as important to consider the human and financial elements of a business. If a meeting planner were to sacrifice their entire event payroll in order to convert their meeting to a solar-powered gathering, would that make any sense or contribute to the overall success of the business? Of course not!

Have you heard of triple bottom line accounting? Well, if not, this is a modern business valuation system. Balancing the returns in the three categories of people, planet and profit has been the hallmark of long-term growth for the most successful businesses in the world.

So what does this mean to a meeting planner?

The first step is to adopt a holistic view of your meetings portfolio. As with the practices of a Strategic Meetings Management Program, take a step back from your individual meetings and take a look at your program as a whole. Evaluate where you will be able to improve within one category without sacrificing the other two.  Begin shifting your focus from “greening” everything to spreading your efforts amongst all three.

Please stay tuned for updates as we will continue to explore the additional steps to achieve a sustainable meetings program – perhaps ultimately we’ll achieve an SSMMP: Strategic Sustainable Meetings Management Program?!