Research article A model for measuring the environmental sustainability of events Antonio Boggia, Gianluca Massei, Luisa Paolotti * , Lucia Rocchi, Federico Schiavi Department of Agricultural, Food and Environmental Sciences, University of Perugia, Borgo XX Giugno, 74 06121 Perugia Italy article info Article history: Received 11 May 2017 Received in revised form 14 October 2017 Accepted 22 November 2017 Keywords: Assessment tools Environmental impact assessments Environmental management Green consumers Indicators abstract Like all human activities, events can generate significant pressures on environmental resources, unless they are well-managed and monitored. Therefore, it is becoming more and more important to develop models that can measure their environmental sustainability. Although increasing attention is being paid to this sector, there is currently no standard protocol or method to assess the eco-sustainability of events. This article presents an innovative assessment procedure to measure the environmental sustainability of events. It is based on several indicators, combined by means of a multi-criteria approach and aggregated into a final index, which we called METER (Measuring Events Through Environmental Research). The METER index uses nine major operational categories, divided in sub-categories and detailed items, which cover all the main aspects concerning environmental sustainability of an event and are evaluated for all its phases, i.e. planning, organisation, implementation, post event. The index is fairly analytical, and is thus able to represent the numerous aspects to be taken into consideration in the environmental assessment of an event. At the same time, it is simple to apply and user-friendly, thanks to its graphics and effective communication of the web platform within it is implemented. Moreover, METER is based on a participatory approach using the bottom-up model and on the principle of subsidiarity. All official international documents regarding sustainable development now require subsidiarity. However, it is not being currently applied as part of any certification or with any evaluation tool. Therefore, although the index is still a prototype, it represents an innovation in the field of environmental management. A simple exemplary case is presented, about a European Spring School held at University of Perugia (Italy) in 2014, in which the application of METER showed a sustainability assessment score of 638 points out of 1000, with an excellent management of waste, catering, internal travel and participation aspects. © 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Consumer demand for sustainable products and services has increased in recent years (OECD, 2008; Nidumolu et al., 2009). This is due to an increased awareness of the irreversible phenomena caused by the current pattern of consumption and production. These include climate change, deforestation and loss of biodiver- sity, to name but a few (Vitousek et al., 1997; McMichael, 2013; Maia de Souza et al., 2013; Galli et al., 2014). In this context, envi- ronmental certification systems have expanded encompassing numerous economic sectors, including event organisation. An important milestone for this sector was the guide published by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP et al., 2009), the “Green Meeting Guide - Roll out the Green Carpet for your Partic- ipants”. This was drawn up to assist event organisers and host locations in implementing environmentally sound events. The guide, intended for small and medium events (up to 200 partici- pants), can be applied by all organisations, especially those within the United Nations system. A few international standards for environmental certification are available for the event sector: the international ISO 20121, the American Society for Testing and Ma- terials (ASTM) Standards for Green Meetings and the Global Reporting Initiative-Event Organisers Sector Supplement (GRI- EOSS). The ISO 20121 Event Sustainability Management (2012) defines a sustainable management system for events leading to environ- mental certification. Several international events have used this certification, including the 2012 London Olympic Games, the Danish EU Presidency, the 2014 French Open and EXPO Milan 2015. ASTM Standards for Green Meetings are a number of direct Amer- ican standards for the Manager Meeting Incentive Congress & Event (MICE) sector, developed for business travel. The GRI pro- vides sector guidance for event organisers, enabling them to measure and report their sustainability performance. The Event * Corresponding author. E-mail address: luisa.paolotti@gmail.com (L. Paolotti). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Environmental Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jenvman https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2017.11.057 0301-4797/© 2017 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Journal of Environmental Management 206 (2018) 836e845