Global Green Alliance
The Global Green Alliance (GGA) was formed at ICCA Congress 2009. The three founding members - ACC Liverpool, Cape Town International Convention Centre and Melbourne Convention & Exhibition Centre – all boast an ethos for driving sustainability in the congress and events sector.
The Global Green Alliance priority is to promote sustainable best practice in the industry by helping clients to deliver events with a minimal environmental impact at little or no extra cost to their event budget.
Each venue has an exacting and respected sustainability charter with a range of green awards, certificates and accreditation specific to their country.
Members of the alliance collectively promote their particular green credentials and create a platform for lead referrals across the destinations. Best practices and new initiatives will, in the future, be shared between the venues.
Sustainability is top of the agenda for international event planners and is now seen as a criterion of choice ranking alongside bed stock availability and flight availability into a destination. The Global Green alliance is an opportunity for like-minded venues to share and drive best practices and, of course, to create and refer business opportunities.
The green attributes of members of the Global Green Alliance are as follows:
ACC Liverpool:
• Due to ACC Liverpool's environmental measures it produces half the CO2 emissions it would without any and uses 20% less electricity.
• The design of the building, along with its insulation and air control system, is inherently efficient and requires significantly less energy than a traditional build would.
• Lighting is high efficiency and controlled by motion detection (so a room is dark unless someone is in it).
• Five 20 metre low-noise wind turbines contribute to ACC Liverpool's power provision.
• Rainwater is collected on the roof of the building, which is then used to flush toilets. The rainwater accounts for approximately 40% of the water used for flushing toilets within the arena.
Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre:
• World's first 6* Star Green Star environmentally rated venue
• Displacement ventilation provides effective, high indoor quality air flow at low energy consumption
• Solar hot water systems can offset more than 40 per cent of general hot water requirements and can provide 100 per cent of public amenity hot water requirements
• Light fittings have been selected and positioned in order to minimise resource and energy consumption
• A black water treatment plant collects building wastewater and some stormwater to provide treated water for toilet flushing, irrigation and cooling towers
Cape Town International Convention Centre:
• "My Tree in Africa" initiative to reduce the centre's carbon footprint by planting trees in disadvantaged communities
• Nurture Our World (NOW) campaign which is a call to action and encapsulates the centre's responsibility to address issues such as climate change and the preservation of the environment for future generations.
• Range of green conference packages to encourage event "greening"
• Dedicated environmental task team
• ISO14001 accredited venue
• Water conservation via dual-flushing toilets and automated drip system irrigation methods
• The extensive use of low voltage bulbs, fluorescent fixtures, and dimmer switches
• A primary closed circuit air-conditioning system with daily temperature selection adjusted according to the change in ambient external temperatures
• Daily adjustment of sun louvers to maximise light and reduce the loss of heat.