PORTLAND, ORE.—The Green Meeting Industry Council (GMIC) is rolling out a wide-ranging professional education roadmap that puts practical resources behind the drive for green meeting standards. The announcement by the GMIC comes just a week after the official publication of eight new standards for sustainable meetings, released after years of development by the Accepted Practices Exchange (APEX) and ASTM International.
“This is our moment,” said GMIC president Paul Salinger, vice president-marketing at Oracle Corp. “Corporations and associations have been asking for a recognized standard to help define what makes a meeting more sustainable. Meeting professionals, facilities, and destinations have been looking for the training and education to put those principles into practice. Now, APEX/ASTM is a reality, and GMIC is ready to deliver.”
GMIC has already introduced a certificate course on the foundations of sustainable meeting planning, as well as a seven-step program on integrating APEX/ASTM into meeting operations. The association has also trained a dozen trainers to deliver sustainable meetings education based on the APEX/ASTM standards.
New Training Modules
The new roadmap calls for the association to develop and deliver nearly two dozen new training modules by July 2014, each addressing a key aspect of sustainable meetings practice at one of three levels of expertise: Explorer, Practitioner, and Leader. The roadmap covers three key content areas: sustainability and industry standards, operations and examples, and innovations and next practices.
GMIC Executive Director Tamara Kennedy-Hill, CMP said the roadmap covers a menu of emerging standards, of which the APEX/ASTM series is just one. Others include the Event Organizers Sector Supplement, developed by the Global Reporting Initiative, and ISO 20121, currently under development by the International Organization for Standardization.
“The past four years have seen a global effort to develop sustainable meeting standards and reporting guidelines, but there’s still a lot of confusion about how to apply these principles in the real world,” Kennedy-Hill said. “The industry needs a single, one-stop resource to help planners and decision-makers understand the standards, decide which ones to use for different purposes, and get on with the job. GMIC is the only meetings association devoted full-time to sustainability, so it’s our job to put that training in place.”
GMIC will officially roll out its Foundations for Sustainable Event Planning course at the 2012 Sustainable Meetings Conference, April 22 to 25, 2012 in Montreal, and through advance workshop opportunities at select GMIC chapter locations.
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