Nothing is Something

Last week Toronto hosted the international convention for the Professional Convention Management Association at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. This in itself is not news, what is news is that this convention of 3000 delegates was the first zero-waste international convention ever held in Canada.

In addition to the traditional waste reduction tactics of providing recycling boxes for paper, glass and cans, the convention organizers used real dishes for lunches and dinners, donated left over food to a local charity and put the rest in bins for composting. All very practical and doable solutions to reducing waste!

However, the part of this story that I think is most important is that one of the prime motivators for running a zero waste convention was as a selling point for Toronto. As was noted by Andrew Weir, vice-president of Tourism Toronto "We think that this [zero waste conventions] is going to be a competitive advantage for Toronto".

Conventions such as this where "being green" is considered a smart and profitable business decision is a very positive sign for the continued adoption of green practices by main stream businesses and consumers.