As an award-winning leading UK academic venue, Keele University Events & Conferencing have just been awarded a ‘Green Meetings Gold Accreditation.’
For over 25 years, Green Tourism has assessed and accredited the sustainable practices, however it is only in the past few years they have developed a new Green Meetings Standard to drive the message to conference and event customers of a venue’s valid investment in sustainability.
The team at Keele worked closely with the Sustainability Team at the University which in 2021 was awarded Global Sustainability Institution of the Year and has for the 4th consecutive year been placed among the Top 40 universities in the world for sustainability, and most recently was a winner at the Clean Energy Awards (2023) for their leading Smart Energy Network Demonstrator.
Preparing for the assessment, the team reviewed all aspects of the campus commitment to sustainability. But more importantly, engaged with suppliers to understand their sustainability commitments and how these impacted on the events and conferencing business. Recently launching their Green Delegate Packages with the ability to calculate the carbon used to run events, offering carbon neutral options and partnering with clients to meet their sustainable goals, this is just one of the many initiatives the team have implemented.
Euan Haggart, Environment and Sustainability Assessor for Green Tourism on awarding the Gold Accreditation, said: “Keele University Conferencing & Events have achieved a well-deserved Gold award following on from their Green Meetings assessment. The team at Keele have shown that customer and delegate care are as equally important to them as providing a sustainable environment for them to attend.”
Looking to the future the team have created a focus group linking events and conferencing with the University Sustainability team to continue to work on the Universities’ objective to achieve Carbon Neutral Goals for 2030.
Emma Woodcock, Head of Catering & Events, on achieving the accreditation, said: “I am extremely proud of the hard work and dedication the entire team have put into achieving this accreditation from Green Meetings, which is a highly credible endorsement. We are passionate about sustainability, which is embedded into everything we do, and achieving gold standard reinforces our commitment to delivering high-quality and memorable experiences, sustainably.”
Keele University Events and Conferencing joins over 700 venues and hotels ac ross the UK using the Green Tourism standard to provide reassurance to their procurement teams, and more importantly to highlight to corporate meeting and event planners their commitment to sustainability when hosting events at Keele.
