Best Places to MeetGreen® Calculator

Air travel creates a significant portion of the environmental impact of meetings. The Best Places to MeetGreen® Calculator helps meeting planners evaluate those destinations that have the smallest emissions footprint relative to their attendee travel patterns. Simply enter how many attendees you have and where they are coming from and receive a report on the travel footprint of those cities you are considering.

Calculations
Calculations are based upon return air travel using 'as the crow flies' distances. It is important to realize that air travel emissions will vary based on length of flight and prevailing aviation technology. For simplicity Meeting Strategies Worldwide chose one central city within each of the regions identified to estimate the average travel distance. As most of our clients hold meetings within the US using US-based carriers we have chosen an emissions factor that is reflective of US domestic carriers, applying radiative forcing. Radiative forcing recognizes that emissions and water vapor behave differently at different altitudes. It is argued that calculating aircraft emissions without a radiative forcing factor can present overly optimistic estimates of actual emissions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates that radiative forcing can be 2.7 times the normal greenhouse effect of emissions at lower altitudes. We have therefore included this factor in our calculations to ensure we are not under-estimating the actual climate impact of air travel.

Background - MeetGreen
MeetGreen is a participant in the Convention Industry Council's Green Meetings Task Force and a member of Meeting Professionals International, the Professional Convention Management Association and Green Meeting Industry Council. Our MeetGreen® standards have been set with full knowledge of prevailing and leading industry practice. Best Places to MeetGreen® is based on our Code of Ethics defined by the GMIC. The scoring mechanism used for Best Places to MeetGreen® measures leadership level practices that exceed the Convention Industry Council's Green Meeting Guidelines and green meetings procurement policies identified by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

MeetGreen is a practitioner of the Natural Step Framework and a signatory to the UN Global Compact. The scoring and practices outlined in Best Places to MeetGreen® reflect our desire to meet in a way that aligns with principles of sound environmental management and social responsibility. This means we desire to operate and partner with cities and businesses who share our values to reduce what we use and contribute positively to the communities we operate in, locally and globally. We provide our Best Places to MeetGreen® list as a way to enable other meeting planners to do the same.