According to the Natural Marketing Institute, 35 million Americans, or approximately 16 percent of the adult population, spend nearly $209 billion for goods and services focused on health, the environment, social justice, personal development, and sustainable living.

While the companies behind these goods and services may say they are good for the environment, jaded consumers wonder if they just might be hitching a ride on the green gravy train.

As Patricia Aburdene, author of 2010: The Rise of Conscious Capitalism told Convene in the January issue, "People are getting more and more cynical: 'Isn't it all just greenwashing, using the environment to make themselves look good without doing good?' That cynicism marks the beginning of a new trend related to the values-driven consumer - the need for objective information. They want businesses to be evaluated by an independent third party."

The independent stamp of eco-approval can come in the form of an ecolabel - a logo that identifies a food and consumer product or company that has met an environmentally preferable standard. As www.ecolabelling.org points out, there are lots of different standards with varying levels of quality control around the world.

Typically, companies apply to an ecolabeling organization for the right to use its label on their product. They pay an application fee and if they successfully meet the standard, often pay a fee to use it. Sometimes they just decide to award themselves a label - a less time-consuming but less credible approach.

The International Organization for Standardization (www.iso.org) identifies three types of labels:

1) The seal of approval - if you meet the standard you get the label.

2) General claim - adding a generic green term to the product name like "organic" or "biodegradable"- this type is the most likely to be guilty of greenwashing.

3) Graded - like "Grade A beef" or "a four-star hotel," graded labels provide relative indicators of quality that allow the consumer to select between different grades.

What does all this have to do with meetings?

If the meetings industry had an independent organization standardizing green practices, which of these three ecolabels would your meeting get?

It's not that far-fetched. The Green Meeting Industry Council (www.greenmeetings.info, GMIC) is partnering to develop environmentally responsible certification schemes for a variety of meeting industry components.

In the meantime, even small conservation steps taken during the meeting (such as eliminating session handouts and making them available online), is a good thing. As GMIC's recent report The Future is Green: Charting a Sustainable Future for Meetings (www.greenmeetings.info/TheFutureIsGreen.pdf) points out, "As more meeting professionals adopt green practices, the baseline and criteria for best environmental practice advances."

Still, in the absence of industry-wide benchmarking standards, broad generic claims about green meetings will likely be questioned.

One respondent to this year's Convene meetings market survey cited greenwashing as a No. 1 industry concern: "Everyone is jumping on the bandwagon just so they can say they hold green meetings and it's a bunch of BS if you ask me. Most planners don't know what it is to be truly a 'green' meeting. It's a buzzword people are taking advantage of and they should act on it thoroughly or don't make it a part of their meeting at all."

Attendees are consumers, and with the recent proliferation of environmental marketing claims, they will be judging how "green" you say your meeting is. Incorporate as many green initiatives as you can, but be careful of making broad and ambiguous claims that can be challenged.

Substantiate each green claim.

Encourage participation.

Benchmark your own progress at each meeting. What was the environmental and economic impact of each initiative?

Disclosure Versus Deception The U.S. Federal Trade Commission has established guides for the use of environmental marketing claims (www. ftc.gov/ bcp/grn rule/guides980427. htm).

Michelle Russell is Convene's editor. This Megatrends column is part of a continuing series examining the forces shaping the meetings industry, sponsored by the Melbourne Exhibition and Convention Centre and the Melbourne Convention + Visitors Bureau, www.melbourne conventions.com.au, Where Australia Meets the World.