10 Tips For Creative, Eco-Friendly Company Holiday Parties

With a high percentage of employees working remotely, and now that covid has become manageable with vaccinations, the holidays can be a good time to bring people together in person. These events can leave a big carbon footprint, but there are ways to manage it and still have fun.

Limiting the event’s environmental impact and aligning it with your Environment-Social-Governance (ESG) values is not hard with some creativity and forethought.

The Green Business Bureau has an interesting sustainable event planning guide and we can also learn from the strategies organizations like Earth Angel are using to reduce the impact of television and movie productions. MeetGreen also has a sustainable event toolkit, with checklists to remove some of the guesswork and make sure you think of everything.

You want to be creative in planning events too, of course, and seeking to reduce your party’s environmental impact can be a creative spark by making you think of new options.

Here are 10 strategies to consider:

1. Virtual happy hour: Some organizations are having virtual holiday happy hours, sending employees a gift card or holiday bonus to buy a meal and a beverage, and arranging for everyone who can to gather at an appointed time. It can be tricky with time zone differences, but those can be managed.

2. Plan for the environmental impact while designing the event. Emellie O’Brien, CEO and Founder of Earth Angel, which reduces the environmental impact of movies and television productions from “Spiderman” to “Madam Secretary,” emphasizes that a key to reducing the impact of any production is to address these things upfront as a priority, not to bolt them on later. This includes putting the systems in place to measure your water, energy and paper consumption and waste output, so your ESG data is accurate.

3. Choose a LEED-certified location: To reduce the energy use of your event, and align with your ESG values, you can start by identifying locations that in are in LEED-certified buildings, that is, certified by the U.S. Green Building Council as environmentally-responsible. If you need an external power source, consider using solar or other alternative-fueled generator (rather than diesel).

4. Reduce waste: The Green Business Bureau says that “A typical event attendee is estimated to generate 4.17 pounds of waste per day, of which 85% is said to end up in landfills.” Waste management can also spur creative ideas for the event and menu. For example, what kind of dishes and flatware and decorations can you use that will limit what ends up in landfill?

Using plants and other botanicals that are natural can be very pretty and reused, disposed of environmentally, or donated, for example. Wreaths and other decorations can be made from fabric too.

5. Determine your dishes strategy: Determine if it’s better for your event in terms of number of guests and layout and ambience, as well as cost, to use regular dishes and wash them, or to use dishes and flatware that is either made from recycled materials or that can be recycled. Washing uses a lot of water of course, so it also depends on if you’re having your event in an area that is experiencing water scarcity, such as in the Southwest.

6. Recycle: Have recycling bins easily available and accessible, or have people working the event pick up empty recyclables throughout the event.

7. Manage travel’s impact: Consider buying carbon offsets to offset the environmental impact of all those people flying in or driving in. Or, organize the traveling to coincide with other meetings, or have people carpool, maybe even chartering a bus for regional team members. The Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, also has resources to identify “green” hotels.

8. Send digital invitations: Reduce the use of paper by sending out digital invitations, which you can also then use mobile confirmations that are scanned as people arrive, confirming they were invited.

9. Choose napkins carefully: Paper napkins use trees, but can be customized for your decorative theme, and you can find paper napkins made from recycled paper. Cloth napkins use a lot of water to clean, and incur the cost to do so, but are also more elegant.

10. Hire caterers based on environmental priorities as well as menu and cost: There are lots of caterers who use organic, plant-based and/or fair trade foods and ingredients, and who prioritize environmental practices. They should include the dishes, napkins, and other food and beverage serving pieces according to your values, and do composting and recycling, as well as to using environmentally-sound cleaning products. Ask where they dump the composting or suggest a community garden that’s in your organization’s neighborhood.

You might announce a significant charitable contribution the organization is making, or present awards to team members who volunteered the most, or other community-minded awards. Maybe have guests bring toys to donate as well.

After the event, you can share the joy too, by bringing the toys people brought to children in shelters or hospitals, and leftover food in the kitchen to shelters, and bringing flower arrangements and plants to nursing homes, children’s hospitals or homeless or domestic abuse shelters, or to Ukrainian refugees.

These can then be factored into your community service and charitable contributions.