The idea of the Sustainable Event Certification Campaign was to create awareness of the feasibility of integrating sustainability into event planning. Often events are organized and executed without sufficient awareness of the environmental and social impacts pre- and post-event.  A modest campaign was run to raise awareness of such issues in the fall 2008 semester concurrent with the launch of the guide.

It recently became evident that properly addressing the negative impacts from campus events, due to unsustainable planning, would require a more thorough and widely diffused campaign. Funding was essential to allow this campaign to be re-initiated and continued throughout the 2010-11 academic year.

This guide is composed of resources and some simple but not always obvious advice that will aid you in organizing an event that benefits the community, promotes ethical purchasing, and reduces waste. For some people this guide will function mainly as a resource providing information about retailers and ways to reduce waste, for others who have never organized a big event it may act as a framework for the “how” of organizing.

Years funded: 2010-11

Amount allocated: $272.28

Project leader: Laura Beach, Jessica Sypher, Vanessa Strzelecki

E-mail: suscon.seg@gmail.com