Best of 2011: Tahira Endean on What Sustainability Means Now

Sustainability is critical for the world as a whole, and it’s time to ask: Are our events keeping up? Event professionals need to ask suppliers about their supply chains: Where does your food come from? Are the people who made your gifts treated fairly in their workplace? Are we leaving the communities where we do our events as better places after we leave, either through visible corporate social responsibility efforts, the general economic impact of our meeting, or incorporating green thinking? That requires looking at choices in transportation, technology, food, recycling, decor, waste management, and more. To be sustainable, we also need to take care of our own, ensuring clients receive value but not at the expense of the health or economic well-being of our own teams. Sustainability is whole-systems thinking.

—Tahira Endean (@TahiraCreates), director of creative and production, Cantrav Services, Vancouver