Over 9000 international meetings are held globally each year, approximately 20% of which involve over 1000 participants. Numerous large domestic meetings are also convened annually. Construction and use of facilities, travel and accommodation, and operations for these events have enormous impact on the host region. Some of this impact is positive. The 2002 United Nations World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg generated US $270 million for the South African economy; led to new business sales worth US $837 million, and created over 19000 jobs for South African citizens. However, 322,59 tonnes of waste and 136000 tonnes of carbon emissions were also generated from the WSSD, equating to approximately half of the waste collected each month from the Johannesburg Inner City and half of South Africa’s daily fossil fuel related carbon emissions. An event’s environmental impact can be minimised, and even avoided. In the light of greening the WSSD, the South African government, UNDP, the Global Environment Facility, and the World Conservation Union set out to minimise the negative environmental impact of the WSSD, and developed a handbook based on the lessons learned from the Greening the WSSD experience.

This handbook provides event organisers with a set of guidelines on greening large-scale events, or hosting them in an environmentally responsible manner.  Organisations and individuals may also find value in the guidelines, as the basic principles of greening and key greening practices can be applied to any decision or activity at any scale. Through event greening, this handbook ultimately seeks to influence individual and collective behavior to leave a greening legacy of environmental best practice.