Global Financial Client Sustainable Venue Sourcing

Our client, a global financial company, wanted to extend their sustainability goals into their meetings and events program.

While they had already embedded sustainability into their travel policy by selecting hotels and transport through their TMC based on environmental impact, they recognized a gap when it came to booking hotels and venues for events.

The client found that sustainability scoring for meetings and events was inconsistent and difficult to interpret. They wanted a way to:

• Apply meaningful sustainability criteria to venue and hotel selection
• Understand whether bookers were prioritizing sustainability over cost
• Influence and educate bookers to make more responsible choices
• Ensure sustainability information reflected their business goals

They needed a solution that was simple, scalable and impactful, without adding time or complexity to the booking process.

To meet the client’s goals, BCD M&E developed a tailored sustainability scorecard made up of 30 questions. This tool was designed to bring structure and consistency to how venues and hotels were assessed for environmental impact. 

We began by running a workshop with the client to identify which sustainability goals mattered most to their business. From this session, the client selected eight key criteria that aligned with their internal values and reporting needs. 

Using these criteria, we applied our own technology platform, Empower Venues, to track and score venues and hotels across our database. This provided clear, data-driven insights into how each option performed against the client’s chosen sustainability standards. 

The client piloted the program with one team over a six-month period. Each proposed venue was scored against their selected sustainability criteria, giving bookers a clear percentage rating to guide their decisions.

The data quickly revealed that bookers were consistently choosing the most sustainable options when budget allowed. On the few occasions where sustainability was not prioritized, cost was the deciding factor.

Over time, adoption of the scorecard steadily increased. Quarter by quarter, more bookers began using sustainability scores as a key part of their decision-making process. The client also saw the positive impact of internal communications and strategy in supporting this behavioral shift.

All data was captured and stored within BCD M&E’s systems, enabling the client to use the results to support their own carbon reporting.

Importantly, the integration of the scorecard added no extra time or complexity to the sourcing process, making it a seamless and scalable solution.