The Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC), together with two of the world’s most renowned eco-friendly convention centres: the Arena and Convention Centre Liverpool and the Cape Town International Convention Centre, have joined forces to create a Global Green Alliance.
This initiative was a direct result of relationships forged at the recent ICCA Congress in Florence with the alliance aiming to promote industry best-practice for hosting sustainable events.
Anne Jamieson, Director of Sales at the MCEC said: ‘The launch of this new partnership marks an exciting new era for the meetings and events sector as we collaborate in developing new eco-friendly venue design features and packaged services. We anticipate that event organisers will benefit from a significantly enhanced sustainable offer and the industry as a whole will see best-practice improved across the board.’
Kerrin MacPhie, Head of Sales at the BT Convention Centre, part of ACC Liverpool, believes that event organisers have been under increasing pressure for some time now to meet CSR and sustainability targets.
‘With this new Global Green Alliance, we will not only offer clients an outstanding, eco-friendly venue in the UK, but can extend that offer to include partner convention centres across the world that we know will meet their sustainability targets as well as we do at ACC Liverpool.’
Esmare Van Tonder, International Sales Manager for Cape Town International Convention Centre added: ‘There is a lot of hype regarding the green agenda, which makes it difficult for organisers to distinguish veneer policies from tangible deliverables that truly have an impact on improving sustainability targets. With this new alliance, we are setting the bar in terms of eco-venue standards and giving organisers a clear choice of partner organisations that can support their CSR needs.’
The alliance will focus on developing its combined offer and joint international marketing activities. Over the coming months, the alliance will announce a range of service offerings and other initiatives to further develop industry best practice and enable clients to gain maximum value from holding sustainable events.
