A flying start for the VenueNL Sustainability Initiative

Eight Dutch conference venues are leading the way in working together to create a more ­sustainable conference scene. Since the main goal is collective progress, it’s about how they’re jointly making progress, not about who is the most sustainable.

The VenueNL Sustainability Initiative kicked off on 20 September 2024, with a participant and partner meeting in RAI Amsterdam. Eight founding venues joined the Conference Matters initiative, in collaboration with ELAN - ESG in Hospi­tality and GSES, to monitor the efforts of Dutch conference venues regarding sustainability and to jointly strive for collective progress regarding environmental, social and governance guidelines (ESG).

Substantiating sustainability improvement

To guarantee substantiated sustainability im­provement, ELAN - ESG in Hospitality developed­ a registration methodology based on ESG guidelines, which broadly tracks progress. During the kick-off, founders Angelique Lombarts and Elvira Wilthagen talked about the structure behind the upcoming European guidelines and the associated CSRD registration obligation. The pair told participants about the 10 KPIs that they will monitor in the coming years.

Holistic reporting system

Participating venues will submit their data to the GSES system. Kelly Ruigrok, GSES’s CEO, demonstrates that the system’s holistic structure tracks and analyses data for a wide range of sustainability labels and certificates. The benefit is that participants can enter existing Green Key data into the system, which is then converted into a format suitable for CSRD reporting.

Widespread support

The VenueNL Sustainability Initiative is supported by the ABN AMRO bank, the trade association CLC-Vecta and the Netherlands Board for Tourism & Conventions (NBTC). Representatives of these partners also attended the kick-off.

Stef Driessen, Sector Banker Hotels & Leisure at ABN AMRO, says that sustainability initiatives are important to the bank and that an interest discount is concluded when financing venues if the company achieves a certain sustainability objective, among other things.

Gerbrig Reitsma, Business Advisor at CLC-Vecta, has discovered through the trade association’s sustainability initiatives and its YOIN excellent meeting places that venues already have most of the essential data available without realising it. She sees opportunities to have more venues join in with this initiative.

Eric Bakermans, Director Marketing Meetings & Conventions at the NBTC, underlines the importance of the VenueNL Sustainability Initiative in establishing the Netherlands in the international convention market. He also sees opportunities to roll out the initiative in a more broad European context.

Founding venues

The first round of data collection by the location partners that first joined the initiative will start in November. These founding venues are Expo Houten, Libéma, Martiniplaza, MECC Maastricht, NextVenue, Postillion Hotels, RAI Amsterdam, and World Forum The Hague.

Sustainability also involves sharing knowledge, which is why, in addition to progress reports, knowledge and advice articles, interviews, cases, and best practices will be published in the coming years. Our site www.conferencematters.nl ­features a special section to follow this content.

 

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RAI Amsterdam equalises intern compensation for MBO and HBO students

In a step towards more inclusivity and equality, RAI Amsterdam will be equalising the intern ­compensation for both MBO and HBO students starting in October 2024. All job applications will also be anonymous from this month onwards. With these measures, the Amsterdam convention centre hopes to contribute to a more inclusive labour market and demonstrates its commitment to fair appreciation for all interns, regardless of their level of education.

The decision follows internal evaluations on the value of internships. “We see interns as full-­fledged team members who bring innovation and creativity,” says Bianca Van den Oever, HR Manager at RAI Amsterdam. “Fair treatment and appreciation of interns at every level contributes to their development and to the success of our company. Moreover, we hope that this step will ultimately contribute to a more inclusive labour market.”

For the same reason, the Amsterdam convention centre has started taking anonymous applications, meaning applying without a name and photo, so that candidates are assessed purely on their skills.

RAI Amsterdam invites other companies to ­follow this example and reconsider the way interns are compensated. “We hope that this decision will have a positive impact on the well-being of interns and that it will inspire others to put equal pay high on the agenda,” explains Van den Oever.