King Street West streetcar
When it comes to an event’s carbon footprint, attendee travel and transportation often constitute the most significant portion. In fact, according to Net Zero Carbon Events, it ranges from 30 to as high as 75 per cent. And while there are certainly more virtual conferences and meetings these days, in-person events aren’t going away. So, how can we reduce the environmental impact of attendee travel to events in Toronto? Here are four ways to reduce your footprint.
Select a hotel and venue with a central location
One of the most important factors to consider when considering a venue and/or hotel is to select one that is centrally located and easily accessible by multiple modes of eco-friendly transportation: walking, biking, public transit. A quick and easy way to determine this is to input the address of your venue into the Walk Score website. It will give you three scores out of 100: one for walking, biking and transit.
The higher the score, the more accessible the location is; and it enables you—the planner—to encourage attendees to utilize eco-friendly transportation once in Toronto to get between the venue and hotel, off-site team-building activities and popular city attractions. If you provide a map to delegates highlighting important event locations, plus nearby attractions and restaurants, it’ll show guests how easy it is to get from point A to point B.
Toronto City Sightseeing bus
Develop partnerships with local transportation organizations
Speaking of biking and public transit, there are many local organizations you can partner with that provide group discounts. For biking, there’s Bike Share Toronto. They offer over 9,000 bikes with over 800 stations and are available for rent 24 hours a day, seven days a week. For public transit, there’s the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC), which operates the subway, streetcars and buses within the City of Toronto, Metrolinx, which is responsible for Go Transit buses and trains that connect the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) with the City of Toronto, as well as the UP Express train from Pearson International Airport to downtown.
And then there’s VIA Rail for provincial and interprovincial travel. Contact these organizations for discount codes and once passes have been purchased, share with your guests so they can take advantage of these eco-friendly options over flying and driving.
If you must hire a car, use group transportation or ride-share options
Another alternative option to reducing the number of solo transportation—via ordering individual taxis and Ubers—is to hire group charters like Canadian Craft Charters, Toronto Charter Buses or Toronto Charters. Not only is this a more eco-friendly option, it’s a sponsorship opportunity and a chance for your delegates to network. And for folks living in the GTA, encouraging ride-sharing is a great option. In Toronto, we have Uber Green, which allows riders to select an electric vehicle when ordering their car. Plus, there’s Communauto, an hourly and daily car-sharing company, Zipcar, Enterprise CarShare and Turo, all of which have hybrid and/or electric vehicle options.
Cars on Front Street outside Union Station in downtown Toronto
For those who have to fly, encourage better flight habits
While flights certainly have the largest impact on an event’s carbon footprint, there are still ways to reduce it. Communicate with out-of-town attendees to take direct and daytime flights to one of the city’s two international airports: Pearson and Billy Bishop.
Landing and takeoff account for approximately 25 per cent of airplane emissions, so the more connections they have, the more harmful the impact. Also, research shows that nighttime flights contribute more to the warming effect of contrails a.k.a. the clouds formed by aircraft exhaust. And flying economy helps, too, as it takes up less space.
