First carbon neutral business dinner?

A CONSULTANCY BUSINESS has laid claim to producing the UK’s first carbon neutral business dinner.

 

Consultants at Arup, working in partnership with Liverpool Vision, the Arena and Convention Centre (ACC), the caterer, Heathcotes and catering students from Liverpool Community College claim their event dinner during the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Liverpool was carbon neutral.

 

The ‘Shaping Smarter Cities: Food for Thought’ dinner was designed to raise awareness amongst business leaders of the complex challenges around managing food, water and energy consumption and how they interrelate.

 

The locally sourced ingredients, car sharing and ‘green travel plans’ developed for guests, were among a number of initiatives that helped make the event carbon neutral. All event correspondence was also electronic and the only paper materials used were  on tables; handmade menus and place settings on seeded paper, which are now to be planted in local gardens to grow wild flowers. Heathcotes, the caterers, worked with suppliers to reduce packaging and waste.

 

Elaine Bowker, principal of Liverpool Community College, said: “This event provided our students with an invaluable experience, using new and innovative techniques. The College already has National Skills Academy status for Environmental Technologies and this was a great opportunity to share some of that knowledge around sustainability with students who perhaps wouldn’t normally come across this during their course of study.”