On September 27th, Venue West celebrated World Tourism Day and was proud to partner up with our tourism industrypartner, Tourism Vancouver and local suppliers and clients, such as PEQISH, The Listel Hotel, Yaletown BIA, G2 Ocean andthe Sheraton Wall Centre Hotel to make a change with a #ShorelineCleanup.
Joining forces was a great success! Over 40 people came together at two different beautiful shoreline locations in downtown Vancouver and collected more than 20 garbage bags that mainly contained single-use plastic wrappers.
We are currently measuring our CO2 emissions with Climate Smart. One of our major emissions areas identified was paper use. In 2020 we are going to work to reduce our associated emissions from printing by working to eliminate most of the printing related to our internal systems. For our marketing materials we are going to work with our printers to shift to higher recycled content. We expect to be able to reduce emissions relating to printing by 30% next year.
– Gwendal Castellan, Sustainable Destination Development Manager at Tourism Vancouver
We are proud to say as an IAPCO member, Venue West and Tourism Vancouver decided to not only free the environment from single-use plastic for one day but committed to long-term sustainability by signing the Ticky the Turtle Pledge. The campaign, a CSR IAPCO initiative, is to reduce the use of plastic in the meetings and conference industry, making it more environmentally-friendly and ecological. Venue West announced its goals and measures to reduce waste and to continue to develop and increase best practices in Sustainable Event Standards.
Venue West’s Ticky the Turtle pledge and measurable change will be “our mission is to Pioneer Event Planning Sustainable Solutions”. In that, we are committed to reducing the use of single-use plastic, both for our events and for improving the management of recyclable items in our workplace and conferences. We pledge to divert 80% of all waste generated at our workplace away from the landfill, including 90% for single-use plastic.
Venue West’s Marketing Manager Angie Isaza acknowledged that ‘it will not be an easy road ahead to hold suppliers and clients accountable to buy-in to sustainability implementation with their services. There are many areas of event management, such as Food and Beverage, meeting venues, transportation, exhibits, destination selection and marketing that need to strengthen and implement best practices and offer sustainability options to PCOs and meeting planners. Venue West is committed to working with like-minded companies and suppliers to help establish sustainable event best practices.’
Thanks to our event sponsor PEQISH, the team prepared themselves for the hard work with fresh Orange-Ginger Energy juice. This drink is not only sustainably sourced but was also served from kegs, encouraging everyone to bring their own reusable mugs and bottles.
We want to thank everyone who came out and helped us clean up our shoreline. We look forward to keeping up the collaboration and education for a sustainable future! Let us continue to refine our processes both internally and for our clients to increase the #sustainability of the tourism and events industry. We encourage clients, industry partners, venues and suppliers to all join us in signing the IAPCO Ticky the Turtle pledge.
Best wishes from the Venue West Conference Services Team!
