For over two years prior to COP15, the Danish government, the City of Copenhagen and the venue, Bella Center, invested exceptional amounts of time, energy and money into ensuring the event was of the highest possible level of sustainability - and the mission was accomplished.
Svend Olling, Head of Department at the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, says:

"It is a real honour and I am very proud to receive the IMEX GMIC Green Meetings Gold Award on behalf of the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From the start we wanted to make the climate change conference as sustainable as possible given the challenging conditions of one of the largest political summits ever held. This award is a testament to the hard work of a committed team of individuals in the Ministry and its event partner organisations. Special recognition should be given to Jan-Christoph Napierski and to the members of the Copenhagen Sustainable Meetings Coalition who formed a unique private-public partnership to not only help improve the sustainability of COP15, but also to share the results and learnings with the global meetings industry. This award is fantastic recognition of the hard work of everyone involved, who leave a legacy for others to follow..."

Jonathan Cohen, Marketing Manager – Business Tourism at VisitDenmark, the official national tourism organisation of Denmark, adds:

“The Green Meetings Gold Award is an acknowledgement from prominent members of the global Meetings Industry that Denmark is very committed to both staging and further developing sustainable meetings. We are, of course, delighted that COP15 has received this prestigious accolade and look forward to continue the collaboration with the other CSMP Coalition partners in future too”.

And Steen Jacobsen, Convention Director at Wonderful Copenhagen Convention Bureau, comments:

”Under the headline ”Copenhagen, the Capital of Sustainable Meetings” we are continuing to use COP15 to catalyse our sustainability efforts. Green Copenhagen is now one of the four main pillars of our 3-year Business Tourism strategy. With a solid sustainable product portfolio, including over 50% of the city’s hotels now being eco- certified, sustainability is a unique and credible attribute that offers both event organisers and the local community short and long term social, environmental and economic value"

The Green Meetings Award was launched in 2003 by IMEX, the International Hotels Environment Initiative and the Oceans Blue Foundation. Now partnered by GMIC (the Green Meetings Industry Council), the award recognises environmental awareness amongst meeting organisers, highlighting the opportunities that now exist to stage business tourism events in 'green-minded' venues, whilst also planning an agenda in which sustainability issues have been taken fully into account.

The Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs was given the Gold Award in recognition of its outstanding ability to create a huge green event with environmental measures that have not only been well monitored and documented, but also converted into an extremely useful set of guidelines ready to use for Meetings Professionals worldwide.

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TO THE EDITOR
 
Partners of the Copenhagen Sustainable Meetings Coalition are:

• The Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (logistical organiser of COP15), Bella Center A/S (venue for COP15), VisitDenmark (Denmark's Official National Tourism Organisation), Wonderful Copenhagen Convention Bureau, The City of Copenhagen, MCI Copenhagen and Novo Nordisk A/S.
• Sustainability consulting was provided by MCI Sustainability Services who were the project managers, designing and writing the CSMP in conjunction with the partners.
• The coalition's common vision is to accelerate the sustainable development of the international meetings industry and henceforth, the sustainable event planning actions and strategy from COP15 have since then been extensively documented in the COP15 Event Sustainability Report and in the corollary Copenhagen Sustainable Meetings Protocol (CSMP).
• The CSMP is an advanced level guide for implementing sustainability strategically within the meetings industry and to be used in conjunction with The COP15 Event Sustainability Report with its more in-depth details of the COP15 sustainability approach, initiatives and performance – see also the www.csmp.dk website.