Tap the image above to learn how to green your event.
Any event can be a green event! Green event practices help hosts implement green options for any type of event. Greening your event makes it a more unique, memorable, efficient, and eco-friendly experience.
Minimize Waste
- Visit your event location to see if there are recycling bins available. If there aren’t recycling bins, contact the Facilities Service Center at 644-2424 to request additional bins. If your event is in the Union, contact Guest Services at 644-6860 to request additional bins.
- Clearly group together and label trash and recycling cans to limit confusion.
- Utilize digital communication such as e-mail blasts, listservs, websites, and social media to publicize your event. Use Qualtrics, Google docs, and e-vites to manage registrations.
- Say NO to bottled water by hosting a BYO event. Provide reusable water bottles or encourage participants to bring their own bottles or mugs.
- Serve beverages in coolers or large pitchers instead of single use bottles.
- Ensure that condiments, sauces, spreads, chips, and other items are served in bulk to avoid unnecessary waste from individual packaging.
- Choose food platters over individually-packaged boxed meals. Food platters create significantly less waste!
- Ask catering to provide to-go containers and encourage participants to take leftovers with them. Or coordinate with FSU’s Food Recovery Network to donate leftover food by e-mailing sustainablecampus@fsu.edu.
- Think about your swag. Provide useful or eco-friendly products as promotional products or giveaways.
- Decorate with plants or reusable items.
Utilize Low Impact Products
- For recurring or annual events, avoid printing dates on signs, posters, and banners so that they may be easily reused year-to-year.
- Clearly group together and label trash and recycling cans to limit confusion.
- Purchase items that can be reused for other events such as A-frame chalkboards, generic decorations, or non-perishable snacks.
- If your event requires print materials try printing on the back side of spare/scrap paper or try purchasing recycled content paper.
- Eliminate the use of Styrofoam products by looking into replacements such as reusable cups and plates or those made from recycled paper products.
- If your event requires disposable items, paper is a better ecological choice than plastic.
- Try to go meat free! Talk with your food service provider about offering vegetarian options, which can also be cheaper!
Encourage Sustainable Transportation
- Ensure the venue you’re using is accessible by foot, skateboard, scooter, bicycle, campus bus, or public transit.
- If you are hosting an on campus event, choose a convenient location and encourage participants to walk or to choose sustainable transportation by informing them about options like carpooling or public transportation. Visit https://starmetro.transloc.com/ to find which bus route connects to your location.
- Provide a map of your event location and share information about nearby bicycle racks.
Share Information & Success
Be sure to tag us on social media when sharing your sustainable event successes @fsusustainable so we can see and share your hard work!
- Before the event, inform attendees about the green event goals and ask participants to help meet those goals.
- The day of the event, use signage and labeling as well as verbal announcements and social media to highlight the sustainability features of your event. Examples include:
- The event location was chosen for its accessibility by sustainable modes of transportation.
- Why no Styrofoam? Styrofoam is commonly provided for single-use containers, but once at the landfill, it never decomposes!
- Where is the leftover food going? The FSU’s Food Recovery Network, a student organization, organizes pick-ups around campus and donates unused food to local hunger and poverty-fighting organizations!
- Why a vegetarian option? Meatless meals are less energy intensive to produce!
- After the event, share the sustainability successes you had during your event via social media and publicly congratulate those who took action. Examples:
- Our event donated 50 pounds of uneaten food to the local community!
- Our guest speaker received a potted plant to show our gratitude!
- Our event reduced paper waste by printing double-sided!
- 70% of our guests arrived by sustainable forms of transportation!
- We said NO to bottled water during our event!
