Sustainability in Action: A Holistic Approach to Events

In our inaugural episode, recorded live at the ASAE Annual Meeting and Exposition in Cleveland, we hand over the hosting duties to Kiki L'Italien, host of Association Chat. Kiki engages in a lively discussion with Virginie De Visscher, executive director of business events for Destination Canada, on the crucial topic of sustainability in events. Together, they explore how sustainability spans environmental, sociocultural, and economic dimensions, advocating for a holistic approach. Virginie provides inspiring examples from Canada, including innovations like green roofs, urban beehives, and local food initiatives, underscoring the importance of incorporating cultural elements to enhance event experiences.

This episode is sponsored by Destination Canada. 

Associations NOW Presents is produced by Association Briefings. 

 

Transcript

Michelle Mason  00:04
From ASAE, this is Associations NOW Presents, a podcast for association professionals tackling issues and challenges that affect our community. I'm Michelle Mason, CEO of ASAE. We hope you enjoythis episode. Now, let's tune in and hear what the experts are discussing.

Kiki L'Italien  00:22
All right, we are live. Do you hear this background noise? We are live at ASAE annual, at the Super Bowl of meetings in Cleveland, Ohio. I am Kiki L'Italien, and I am guest hosting the inaugural podcast episode of ASAE's new podcast. I usually host a podcast over Association Chat. I got a chance to jump over here. And with me is our inaugural podcast guest

Virginie De Visscher  00:53
Virginie De Visscher.

Kiki L'Italien  00:54
I wish you could say that as well as you do. With the last name, L'Italien, and you think I'd be better at this. But anyway, I'm so glad that we're here. I'm so glad that we're talking and I saw you on stage today, and can I just say you were fantastic. It looked like you were like born to do this. You just dominated the stage. You were radiant. 

Virginie De Visscher  01:17
I think I was inspired by who we were introducing, Amanda Gorman.

Kiki L'Italien  01:21
I know. Weren’t we all? Amanda Gorman is not just inspirational. I do believe she's a magical being. I You though, let me tell you, you had an important message, and Team Canada has an important message. That's why you're here. Let's talk about the keyword sustainability, sustainability. We could say it together, sustainability. So I'm super excited to talk to you because for several reasons. One is because I love Canada, but the other is because this is the inaugural episode, inaugural episode of the first ASAE podcast, and they're launching it here. This is supposed to be somewhat of a different format than all of the rest. We get to be the lucky ones. And I'm looking at this list of questions, but all I can do is stare across at you right now and see that you're beaming. You're radiating. I saw you on stage this morning with Amanda Gorman also sharing the stage opening keynote. And you're up there and you're talking about sustainability and being maybe when people hear the word sustainability, they don't think of it as being particularly exciting. But at the same time, a lot of travel here was disrupted because of harsh climate conditions, right? We had these horrible storms. People had a hard time getting to ASAE Annual. Interesting that one of the big features that you're talking about for Canada is Destination Canada is doing some amazing things with sustainability. So I want to go into that. I want to open with that and talk about the fact that it is a really important topic. It is something that I think more and more event planners are finding to be increasingly important for the way that they decide where they're going to post their meetings. And I think that when people start looking for is there something meaningful behind the word sustainability that's happening? They're going to ask these questions. So sustainability, what's happening? Why is this such a focus for you and Destination  Canada? And what's got you fired up about it right now?

Virginie De Visscher  03:36
I think it's a combination of things. It's a passion subject. First of all, it's a personal passion subject, but I think it's undeniable. Like you mentioned, the recent climate events that impacted Cleveland, like these are impacting all of us across the planet. In Canada, we're not immune, and things are happening and we see it. We have a beautiful country, and we want to make sure that it stays that way. So events are disruptive in an ecosystem. By just bringing large amount of species into another ecosystem, you're disrupting the environment. So what can you do to keep less of that disruption, and on the opposite side, how do you maximize the benefits that you bring into a destination with events? Sustainability is a topic that we've really taken on this Destination Canada, but as Team Canada is a whole effort countrywide through a national sustainability plan that really means a lot to us, because we want to still be there for generations coming ahead. And I'm not saying that cliche. I really mean it.

Kiki L'Italien  04:32
Yeah, I was talking with someone about the fact that we were going to have this discussion, and her association is focused on looking at how meetings use their waste. And so she said, “Are you going to ask any questions about that? Are you going to ask, like, what they're doing, how they're working with different meeting planners to figure out how to create more sustainable meetings?” And I said, that's a really great question. Let me go ahead and add that to the list. What are some of the ways that you're working with different people, different associations and organizations that are coming in to have meetings in Canada. 

Virginie De Visscher  05:04
There's lots of different ways how you can approach it, but first, maybe we should define sustainability. Let's do that. Let's define it. When you say the word sustainability, there's a big assumption that it's just about environmental. Yes, but it's not just that. It's not all the green stuff and what you do in regards to saving the planet, it's all about the people and the culture as well. So when we define sustainability, we want to make sure that all three pillars are encompassed into it. So of course, environmental sustainability, but then it's the sociocultural and economic side. So you want to have an impact on local economies when you're coming to meet somewhere, but also that cultures are thriving and people are healthy and people are there for the long term. So when we really see it as all encompassing and not just environmental, that was the first thing to do. But then the realization was, everybody is a part of it. It just it's not put the blame on someone, or don't think you can't do anything about it. It belongs to everybody. We all live on this planet. We all have people that we care about around us for future generations to come. So what can we do? And that was when we started our national business event sustainability plan. And keep in mind, we're a national organization, so we're not necessarily in the city level, but it's very important that we create that leadership for people to move forward and our organizations to be more sustainable. I think COVID really impacted that way too, when meetings were all of a sudden not happening. Sure the environmental footprint was - -well, the environment benefited, right? Nobody was moving anywhere, traveling. But look at all the negative impact that happened. So many businesses shut down. People were not thriving. Knowledge was not being shared, so all these positive impacts and legacies of events were not happening, so it's all about maximizing the benefits and minimizing the negative potential environmental footprint. So then the birth of the plan was to get all destinations on board to be more sustainable for meetings.

Kiki L'Italien  06:57
Do you think that you're getting enough questions about this? Do you notice that there is an increasing amount of interest? I hear talk about it, right? I hear people say that they're interested, but I don't know if, in actuality, that the conversations have changed, have they? 

Virginie De Visscher  07:14
There's  more questions. It's undeniable. We've done a lot of surveys on this, and it's quite visible that right now, it is supplier driven. There's a lot of barriers still to having more sustainable meetings. Cost is one of those biggest barriers, and the second one is lack of knowledge of what you can implement. And so on the supplier side, they've really taken that on venues and hotels, even airlines, to be honest, have taken a stance and been more sustainable, offering more options, whether it's waste diversion or the way energy or electricity is fed into the building, or food and beverage options. So all of that venues and destinations have really taken a stance on how they can make that easier for associations to meet and incorporate them. So while we're not seeing as much coming from the association world and asking for sustainable practices. More and more the responses from the destinations that are bidding on these opportunities are including sustainable practices.

Kiki L'Italien  08:10
Yeah, I think everybody, when I'm looking at associations, the executive directors reporting to their boards, do we want more and more to be able to include this thing that makes everyone feel like they're doing their part. They're doing the thing that's going to make the planet better. I hate to sound a little bit cynical, but actually, from a bottom line standpoint, I think it actually ultimately is better for everybody, even from the bottom, not a standpoint, to be thinking about that bigger picture. Because if we don't have a planet, we can't have more meetings. You know, we can't continue to have associations. And so the other part that you touched on was sustainability, talking about these pillars, talking about being concerned about the cultural side of things. How is Destination Canada showing support and offering up opportunity means to support those measures?

Virginie De Visscher  08:59
So that's a really fun one, seeing that we have so many diverse communities in Canada. We're a mosaic of people that have come from all over the world, but also coming into a land where indigenous peoples were here from time immemorial. And so how do we showcase all of what Canada is made out of, and through sustaining those cultures for multiple generations to come, and so integrating them into programs for meetings is one way to do it. So I'll give you an example. For Canada night at ASAE, we're actually going to have a fashion show, and what we're doing is we're featuring an indigenous designer. So we’ve brought a Metis company called AnneMulaire, and she's an extremely environmentally and socially conscious organization and company, and she's actually going to be doing a fashion show with the pieces that she's created, telling that story. 

Kiki L'Italien  09:53
Stop. I am so interested. I want to be there and see this. This is amazing. I love this. 

Virginie De Visscher  10:00
So one way is we're keeping the culture alive. She can share her story through fashion, but at the same time, we're economically sustaining her business. That's one way that we're actually walking the talks. It's not just about environmental that cultural and economic aspect is so strong in all that we do.

Kiki L'Italien  10:16
So does that get frustrating when people only focus on that because it is important. But it does seem to be that everyone focuses on that one part and not all of these other things. 

Virginie De Visscher  10:26
I wouldn't call it frustrating. I would say focus on the low hanging fruits first, and perhaps the environmental side is just the lower hanging fruit. It's easier to do the cultural side. You have to think it through a little bit harder and getting the help of the local host destination and what cultures they want to showcase are bringing local art. We've had workshops doing local moccasins and to bring that culture alive.

Kiki L'Italien  10:49
Oh, that's so fantastic. Okay, so sustainability has been a major theme for you at this year's ASAE meeting. What has motivated team Canada? 

Virginie De Visscher  11:00
So in 2022 when we launched the National Business Event Sustainability Plan, it was comprised of three sections. So the first part was education and coaching. So what we realized is that when people are uncomfortable or don't know the terms around sustainability, they will be less likely to talk about it. So phase one was really, what does net zero mean? What does carbon neutral mean? All these terms. So we rolled out workshops and education sessions across the country, just so many different partners. Phase two was knowing where we were at. It was benchmarking. So we partner with the Global Destination Sustainability Index, the GDS, and we had 16 destinations across the entire country. We're very big. We're second largest landmass in the world. So we had 16 destinations go through that entire benchmarking process to see where are we at? Where can we improve? If you don't know where you stand, you can't go up, right? So that's what we did. And phase three is storytelling, and we're right in the midst of that. So through this whole benchmarking exercise, we collected stories, initiatives around sustainability across the country, across these three pillars, and we are launching today our storybook. So Sustainability Storybook, which has 30 stories from across the country, which are examples of what you can bring in, like a virtual delegate bag, or the indigenous Fashion Show. There's also stories about incentives into sustainability or different ways to impact the communities that you're living in or having your meeting in. And that storybook has been launched, and we also have a sustainability stories pavilion that showcases eight of these stories here live at ASAE. It's just perfect timing of where we wanted to launch these initiatives.

Kiki L'Italien  12:41
So earlier, you said that this was something that was personally important to you. Can you tell me a little bit more about that? Why is sustainability particularly important to you? 

Virginie De Visscher
You mean me as a person? 

Kiki L'Italien
Yeah, you as a human being, an actual individual.

Virginie De Visscher  12:56
My background is in science and engineering, and I've always been close to the environment itself. I've traveled around the world, lived in Africa for many years, in Asia, and I've seen the impacts of the environment, but also on people around the world and what we can do and the changes over time. And I guess it's almost become a personal passion of mine that I have to do something I believe, very honestly, in whatever field you end up being, if it's medical or signage or entertainment or even tourism, you can do something about it. And so I'm in the tourism industry, I can do something about it. So I'm using that voice and that passion has to feel really good.

Kiki L'Italien  13:37
When you go home at night and you're winding down, you have to feel like, wow, I feel like I'm actively making a difference. 

Virginie De Visscher  13:46
I wish. But it's a journey, and there's so much more to do. So I think I will continue to be on that path. I don't think we have an end point on that one.

Kiki L'Italien  13:55
Okay, we're on the journey together. So part of that journey is people are coming into the pavilion. They're experiencing that here. What's the next step that you hope that they leave that pavilion? What do you hope that they experience and walk away with from interacting with Team Canada?

Virginie De Visscher  14:11
The way the pavilion is designed is that for every story, there's a question, and it's a question that hopefully asks for reflection. So it's: Have you thought about incorporating a cultural element in your meeting? Have you thought about doing this or that? And so what we hope is that booth--by the way, is staffed by a member of Team Canada--all throughout which will be sharing those stories. So it's a way to get people engaged, and maybe if one of them, or every person that visits, goes away with one idea that they can bring back to their meetings, whether it's a local pop up market in the destination that they will be needing to support different businesses that are local, that would be just so amazing. So that's what we really hope to spur and whether they need in Canada or not. Of course, we. Want them to meet in Canada, but it's can we impact that change in all of their meetings. 

Kiki L'Italien  15:04
When an association is actually going about trying to implement sustainability practices or bring that on? I think you touched on this a little bit earlier. What are the challenges that they're facing? Are they trying to bite off more than they pinch What do you hear that they're running into when they're starting to go down that path?

Virginie De Visscher  15:24
There's a variety of reasons, and it's not always the same for everyone, but here are some of the ones that I've heard quite a bit. So one is--and in no particular order--it can be an afterthought. So you know, the whole machine into sourcing next meetings is into place. RFPs out. So we're ready to look and then few months before the meeting, oh, wait a second, did we look at sustainability? Oh, that thing, yeah. So it's much harder to then put back into the meeting once you've gone so far adding it into the RFP and then your sourcing process is one way to go about it. The other challenge that we get is there's no one person to point it to, right? It's only starting now that you're going to have an organization's a sustainability person, so usually it ends up being on the side of the desk of someone for another task to ask to the meeting planner. And it becomes big, right? So if it's not the part of the mission or vision of the organization, it becomes secondary, so putting it as a priority and having a person really dedicated to it can help, and that takes time to create another one. Is definitely the cost. I mentioned cost before, but by sourcing more sustainable venues and sustainable destinations, sometimes that can be avoided because they're already incorporated in the destination. So there's ways to get around it. We're the sustainability sponsor for this event, so that sustainability stations that are around all the food stations, we support that because we believe in that.

Kiki L'Italien  16:50
I have my bottle of water over here, the reusable bottle of water that I have so that I can refill it periodically. And I do believe that I was reminded ahead of time to bring that with me, yes, so that I could fill my bottle with the water around here, so that we wouldn't produce more waste. Is that you're doing? 

Virginie De Visscher  17:10
Absolutely, we're supporting that. And since you can bring your reusable water bottle to the sustainability stories pavilion and get a free entry for a free registration for next year's meeting,

Kiki L'Italien  17:20
Oh my gosh, I think I missed that part somehow. I think I missed it, but that's really amazing. And I would be so curious to see. I have seen a lot of these reusable water bottles going around. So pretty incredible. And what do you think as far as trying to get leaders to take ownership of their role in bringing that awareness into their strategy for their meetings, to think about sustainability, so it isn't an afterthought. I know that pavilion is part of that, but is there a way? Is there some sort of magic that you're weaving that it can get them to think about this stuff? 

Virginie De Visscher  17:56
It's one person at a time. It really is. You get one person inspired and saying, “Yeah, I can do that.” I can bring that in. But I really hope, and maybe that's me, personally, speaking, the way I really hope to change the organization, world, association world, is understanding that no matter what field your association is focused on, sustainability is part of it, if you look at it, all encompassing. So yes, maybe you're in a medical field, and saving the environment is definitely not on your radar, but you're all about people. And so there is something that you can do to save people, and if you see it overall, as a company within sustainability, that makes sense. On our Sustainability Pavilion, we've actually aligned all the sustainability initiatives with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. So when you look at the 17 UNSDGs, everybody can relate to those. It's a universal framework and blueprint. So by doing that, we can put in a language that anybody can take regardless of what field they're in.

Kiki L'Italien  18:52
I love that. I love that. And I feel like when people see the structure behind it and that alignment, it makes them feel safer to maybe do things that they'd haven't done before, right?

Virginie De Visscher  19:02
It's all about starting. You know, it's one little step at a time. Don't try to chew off the entire thing at once, because that's really hard. Yeah, it's just one small step.

Kiki L'Italien  19:09
Okay, so I'm going to ask you the hardest question ever, which is, because I know, get ready. You have so many beautiful destinations, so many beautiful cities. I'm not going to ask you to play favorites among your children, but I am going to ask you for some examples. Do you have some examples you could share with me about some of the fantastic offerings that really emphasize the sustainability efforts that Team Canada is putting forth? 

Virginie De Visscher  19:36
Oh my goodness, there's so many of them. And so if I start listing them, I'm sure I will forget some and then I'm gonna have some unhappy partners.

Kiki L'Italien  19:42
Let me just disclaimer ahead of time, she loves all of you. Like, you're all loved - all the destinations.

Virginie De Visscher  19:49
I do, but there's some really fun examples out there, right? So if you look at first at venues and what some venues have done, anything from green roofs to beehives on the roofs. I'd be remiss. The Vancouver Convention Center is absolutely amazing with some of the energy. 

Kiki L'Italien  20:04
I’ve been there. I was like, I actually had that experience and toured that and this was even, this is not a brand new thing, you guys. This is something that, I don't know, maybe it was 10 to eight years ago I went there, and that was a huge effort. So Team Canada's not new to this game. You guys have been trying to do this for a long time. 

Virginie De Visscher  20:24
Yeah, for sure. So from the green roof fair to beehives in Toronto, to solar panels on the top of the convention center in Edmonton, to the recycling and sorting facilities at the panada conga in Montreal. There's so many amazing things, including the new BMO center in Calgary. They had a really fun initiative just recently when they did their opening. So they had listen to this one. This is really cute story. They had name badges that were made out of seed paper. And then they had a whole activity where they had a planter box where we could each plant our name tag, and so now our name tag would live as flowers forever on inside those planters.

Kiki L'Italien  21:04
What I love about that is that we've seen like the sort of seed tags, but to actually have the ritual, the actual experience of doing that.

Virginie De Visscher
Very moving.

Kiki L'Italien
It's moving. It's community building. Every time you're looking at what helps people to feel like they belong, whether it's to a meeting, to a community of association executives. It's like you're looking for that piece, and that is something that brings people to that. I love that. That's such a good example.

Virginie De Visscher  21:30
It's a beautiful example, but you have more and more. I was not so long ago at the Halifax Convention Center, and they had their food stations, and they had a sign in front explaining where the food was coming from. This food came from this particular farmer, and showed, really that locality of supporting local businesses into their food. So it was not only fresh, but it didn't have to travel miles to get there. Just more and more you're seeing those examples across the country, and that makes it super vibrant, and that's only touching the environmental side.

Kiki L'Italien  21:59
So in some of these examples that you're giving me, people can go to the pavilion and they can, like, learn more about that sort of thing, and get those ideas, and get those stories as they're thinking, maybe considering, maybe exploring what's even possible. Because just as you were sitting here explaining some of these to me, I thought, I wish I could have just a compilation of everything that you're saying to you, like all of the examples, so that could go through and just be like, this is brilliant. Let's do this.

Virginie De Visscher  22:29
So at the Pavilion, we can only showcase eight stories that are there, but in the storybook, you're going to have 30 stories. And again, that's still just scratching the surface. So when you reach out to us and even to all of our team Canada, partners, each of them can really share what they have like in depth, because everybody wants a different side of sustainability. Maybe you're not into the food part of it so much, but the cultural side's super important. So it really is a discussion with the organization about what's important to them. 

Kiki L'Italien  22:57
Yeah, I think that sustainability is the key word here, but it's also about experience, and it's also about the feeling of belonging, of having a meaningful experience. When you're engaging with an event or a meeting and you're looking for something that is real.

Virginie De Visscher  23:14
It's about being inspired. For example, at one of our events recently, instead of printing menus, we use little chalkboards. And so we just put the menu on the chalkboard, and then when we were done, we erased it, and then the next day there was the other menu. So there's just a little tidbit on how you just save a lot of paper. And people thought it was really cute. 

Kiki L'Italien
I love that. I think it's fantastic.

Virginie De Visscher
Little ideas like that. And what happened is a lot of the clients that were that event were like, oh, like you. I love that. I'm going to bring that back to my event. And so that's how the ideas spread.

Kiki L'Italien  23:45
I don't know if this is in the pavilion, but maybe taking ideas too like it inspires you to have ideas. You build on them, and it's, Oh, I like that. And then building on that. Let me think of this. Is there a collective area? It's an idea. 

Virginie De Visscher  23:58
Absolutely. Yeah, sources of best practices and things to bring forward.

Kiki L'Italien  24:02
I love it. I love it. Is there anything that I didn't ask you to that I should? 

Virginie De Visscher  24:07
One thing  I want to mention is the word sustainability itself. It's almost like an over loved term, right? Overused. And what happens with overused and over loved terms is that it gets people away from them. Oh, again, another talk about sustainability. But when you look, when you think about it, sustainability is sustaining something. It's maintaining status quo. And so is that really what we want? And so our thinking now, what's next for us is looking towards regenerative tourism. How can we actually do better, rather than staying where we're at? 

Kiki L'Italien  24:41
Ooh, so I'm very intrigued. I like, I love this idea of building on it, and like growing and it's like generating these new ideas. I think that's fantastic. I love that.

Virginie De Visscher  24:54
A 2030, Destination Canada strategy is aiming towards that, and maybe we'll have another chat in a little while. 

Kiki L'Italien  25:01
I would love to have another chat about that. I like this idea of like the Oh, I'm getting inspired already. I love it. I love it. Okay. I am excited that we got a chance to be able to do this. We are so lucky. High five. You guys are hearing this clap, I hope in the background, because we just high fived for real, in person. It's unbelievable. The magic was here. ASAE Annual. Doing this inaugural episode of ASAE Podcast. I'm so glad we got to do this together.

Virginie De Visscher  25:32
Thank you so much.

Michelle Mason  25:36
Thank you for joining us for this episode of Associations NOW Presents. We hope the insights and stories shared today were valuable and inspiring. We look forward to having you join us again for our next episode, but until then, be sure to check out the latest from Associations NOW at associationsnow.com. Don't forget to subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcast so you never miss an episode. Until the next time, I am Michelle Mason, and this has been Associations NOW presents.