Hilton in sustainability drive for meeting, events

Hilton Worldwide is looking to incorporate more sustainability measures into events and meetings, with a new initiative to make reduction waste reduction easier and introduce wellness into its MICE offerings.

The company has launched the ‘Meet with Purpose’ to give planners more choices and help them to meet their customers' corporate responsibility goals.

Inspired by its own corporate responsibility strategy, Hilton gathered feedback from customers and sales team members to identify the most pressing sustainability issues for meetings and events.

Addressing these identified needs, Hilton’s Meet with Purpose initiative will focus on two aspects: ‘Mindful Eating’ and 'Mindful Meeting'.

'Mindful Eating' will encourage meeting professionals to re-examine event dining to minimise food waste and encourage healthy choices. This will be achieved through measures such as portion control, sourcing locally, pre-plating salads and establishing central water stations with reusable containers.

Meanwhile, 'Mindful Meeting' is directing meeting professionals towards host more sustainable events by considering practices that are less resource-intensive. Among these are using paperless registration and placing notepads in a central location, as well as turning off climate control when a meeting room is not in use.

"Today's meeting attendees seek greater meaning in their event experiences and expect event planners to consider the broader implications of the meeting itself," said Hilton Worldwide managing director of sales effectiveness for the Americas, Lesley Brasesco.

"Meet with Purpose offers meeting professionals a menu of options that make it easy to incorporate sustainable, impactful and healthy choices that deliver on the broader corporate responsibility commitments of our customers and Hilton."

In practice, the programme could have a significant impact. Last September, Hilton San Francisco Union Square hosted an event that typically draws approximately 60,000 attendees. Hilton's team worked along Meet with Purpose guidelines, and helped the company recycle 66,858 pounds of waste material, source approximately 30% of energy from renewable sources and contribute more than 1.3 tonnes of food donations.