Have you thought about how sustainable your next conference or meeting will be?

Top of the agenda for many organisations at the moment is Corporate and Social Responsibility (CSR), included within this is sustainability. Here at The Priory Rooms meeting and conference centre we’ve developed our “Conferencing with a conscience” initiative which is geared at ensuring our customers both existing and potential get a really strong understanding and overview of how we operate, which in turn can compliment good practice when it comes to choosing a sustainable venue and more importantly compliment their CSR policy.

We actively continue to build on our position in sustainable conference and meetings, we lead the way as one of Birmingham’s most sustainable conference venues and just by taking a few simple steps we’ve managed to achieve BIG things:

• Commitment to waste reduction – reducing the amount of waste that enters landfill by working with First Mile recycling and achieving Gold status for our efforts in the introduction of processes to improve our food recycling procedures.

• Reduction in energy consumption – we actively encourage better efficiency in energy consumption. All lighting is censored around our building and all of our electronic equipment is developed with power saving mode. We also have a strong “switch it off policy” to ensure when anything is not in use it is not powered. We also invested £35,000 to install new glass in our atrium to become more energy efficient.

• Rain water harvesting – We have invested significantly in technology to harvest the rain water by installing state of the art equipment on the roof of the building. This rain water is then filtered and recycled to provide the water used to flush the ladies lavatories within the venue, this cuts our water consumption significantly and last year we achieved a reduction of 25% in consumption.

• Fair trade – living true to our Quaker ethos we only use Fair Trade tea and have partnered with Kingdom Coffee to provide our refreshments in the venue. We’re therefore confident from bean to cup coffee and tea growers globally are rewarded and paid fairly and equally for the work they do.

• Sustainable sourcing and suppliers – we actively work with suppliers who instill the same vision and values we have on sustainability. This extends to our food as well, ensuring we source locally to reduce the amount of miles food is travelling to reach the venue as well as supporting social enterprise, start up and small to medium enterprises in our local community.

• Recycling – we purchase plastics that are 100% biodegradable, they are made from plant starch with can be recycled back into compost.

• Location – due to our central location we are walking distance from Birmingham’s three main transport hubs New Street, Snow Hill and Moor Street. Our Conference Sales Team actively encourage customers at the point of booking to travel to the venue by train thus reducing their carbon footprint.

Commenting on our initiative our Business Development Manager Mark McCloskey added:

“Sustainability is very much a hot potato in the industry and among many meeting planners. It is of significant benefit to our customers and equally our venue that so many of our initiatives ticks the box in complimenting many organisations CSR policy. I truly believe that our conferencing with a conscience initiative is extremely unique in the market place and more importantly in Birmingham. These simple steps really give us a point of difference against other venues in the city and something we can really use as a unique selling point when engaging with our customers.”

These simple steps really go a long way in ensuring that when you book your next meeting or conference with The Priory Rooms that you’re contributing not only to the environment but also to further enrich the lives of others in the local community but also further a field.

Contact our dedicated Meeting and Conference team today on 0121 236 2317 or enquiries@theprioryrooms.co.uk