You don't need to become a sustainability expert. Your supply partners are your sustainability department. Your job is to ask the right questions and hold them to the answers.
Planners tell me the same thing over and over: "I want to do the right thing, but I don't know enough to judge what my vendors tell me." You don't have to. You already have a team of experts, the florists, decorators, caterers, rental companies and haulers you hire every week. What you need is a short list of questions that separates a real answer from a nice-sounding one.
These questions are going to matter more every year. In 2021, at the UN climate conference in Glasgow, the meetings industry launched the Net Zero Carbon Events pledge, committing signers to cut emissions in half by 2030 and reach net zero by 2050 at the latest. Most of an event's footprint lives in the supply chain, so the organizers who signed can't get there without data from suppliers. Standards like ISO 20121 are already showing up in corporate RFPs. Sooner or later, someone is going to ask you how sustainable your event was.
Here are the seven questions I'd ask. Good suppliers will welcome them. The ones who get uncomfortable are telling you something too.
Two words cut through every green label: by whom. "Our flowers come from a certified farm" is not an answer. "These roses come from Nevado Roses in Ecuador, certified Fair Trade and Flor Ecuador" is. A named farm and a named certification can be checked. Then ask what the certification covers, because some cover chemicals, some cover labor, and some cover both. Compare the floral certifications.
Back to inventory, donated, composted, or the dumpster? Ask item by item for the big pieces. A supplier with a real program will know. If the honest answer is "most of it gets thrown away," that's worth knowing before you sign.
The green foam brick most florists grew up with is a plastic, and research has found it breaks down into microplastics. Many designers now work with chicken wire, pin frogs and water instead. Read the floral foam guide.
Stems, leaves, greenery and food scraps can be composted instead of landfilled, but only if someone actually collects them. Ask for the name of the hauler. If they don't have an answer, that's your answer. Read the composting guide.
Every truck is fuel, emissions and a loading-dock slot. When one partner handles several categories, or suppliers coordinate deliveries and strike windows, trucks come off the road. It often saves money too.
Not every supplier can do this yet, and that's fine. Ask anyway. A supplier who measures one event is ahead of most of the market, and your asking is what tells them it matters.
Offsets are a legitimate tool for what can't be eliminated, but they should come after reducing, not instead of it. Ask who verified them and what project they fund. A real offset comes with paperwork.
Copy these into your next request for proposal, as written:
You'll learn more about your suppliers from their answers than from any brochure. And every planner who asks moves the whole Orlando market a little further.
What a real claim looks like, and the four questions behind it.
SUSTAINABLE EVENTS. CHOICES THAT MATTER.