Change begins at home - or, when you're talking catering, in the kitchen. Thus, as the meetings industry begins moving toward zero-waste events, Greg Christian has implemented a "zero-waste kitchen" initiative at his Chicago catering company (www.gregchristian.com). That means he and his 35-person staff recycle or compost all the waste they generate both in their kitchen and on site at the events they cater.

"The food business is the biggest polluter in the world," said Christian, who calls himself a "conscious caterer." "There's more resources burned up and pollution that goes into dumps, chemicals used on lands and on animals, than [from] any other business. If we can start to cut back on all those things, the better."

How can you begin nudging your catered events in this direction? Christian has a few suggestions.

Start by targeting waste on the back end. Write into your RFP with your caterer or meeting facility that you want a certain percentage of your waste stream recycled. Christian suggests striking from this section of your contract such standard phrases as "if possible" and "when available," because "that gives them all kinds of room to squirm out of it." Then realize you might have to help the venue figure out optimum recycling practices, such as keeping all trash cans off the event floor so none of your attendees mixes recyclables with actual garbage. "This is a leverage point in moving the system," Christian said. "It's not that hard. When you say, 'I have hormone-free, antibiotic-free beef,' they think, that costs a lot of money. But if you tell people, 'I just recycled all the bottles used for my party with PCMA,' they think, oh, I might be able to do that."

Think carefully about your main course. Usually that means meat or seafood - both of which offer plenty of opportunities to go green. Especially meat. "Animal husbandry produces the most greenhouse gases in the world," Christian said. "That's mostly cows, but pigs and chickens and some lambs, too." The solutions? Serve less meat, and map your inputs - meaning plot out where your food is coming from, with an eye on how much carbon dioxide is being emitted to get it to your event. "In the RFP," Christian said, "it can be something like this: 'We want 20 percent of our ingredients to be locally sourced by dollar amount of the contract.'"

Similarly, according to Christian, there's enormous waste in how seafood is caught. "We pull about 10 billion pounds of seafood out of the water and eat it every year," Christian said, "and pull another two billion pounds of what's called bycatch. And that's all wasted." The solution? Make sure any seafood you use comes from one of the few sustainable farms in the country.

Plan seasonal menus. "The window for aspar- agus is four to five weeks," Christian said, "but it's available all year round because it's grown and shipped halfway across the world." Put it on your catering staff to plan menus with seasonal foods - and be up front with attendees if they have questions about what's on their plate. "If you educate your customers as to why they won't have salmon and asparagus," Christian said, "99 out of a hundred will bite."

Pick your area of concentration. To begin taking a more sustainable approach to F&B, pick just one thing. "If your thing is your table settings, start looking at green and sustainable linen companies, flower companies, and chair companies," Christian said. "If your thing is the bar and specialty drinks, start there. Now you have a win. From that win you can move on to the other parts of the meeting and event that might not be your favorite thing - but it's part of it."

Christopher Durso is executive editor of Convene.