When its construction was completed two years ago the Sands’ Palazzo Hotel, Resort and Casino earned a LEED-Silver rating for meeting environmental design guidelines. Shortly after in 2010, the Las Vegas Sands Corporation also announced that the Venetian Resort and Casino and Sands Expo and Convention Center, which both opened in the 1990’s, had received LEED-Gold certification as existing buildings after updating its facilities.

Now, meeting planners that were considering hosting their events, trade shows or conferences at the Sands will have another option to commit to environmental sustainability—the venue announced this week that the fully customizable Sands Eco 360 Meetings program is now available to event organizers and show planners.

The Sands Eco 360 program launched last year to improve operational maintenance polices to fall more closely inline with environmentally sustainable standards. The announcement this Wednesday adds more options for those looking to throw an even greener event.

“One of the reasons that we have this program is because we really believe this is the right thing to do for our people, which include our guests, employees, community and ultimately the planet as well as our partners—we want to provide value to our shareholders as well,” says Jenny Yu, director of corporate sustainability for the Las Vegas Sands Corporation. “We really believe that we’re the true leaders in our industry in the area of sustainability in several areas.”

While the larger Sands Eco 360 initiative already strives to reduce water waste, harness solar energy and recycle waste materials throughout its properties, the new meeting program gives individuals several more options to take their events to the next level of green. The green meeting and convention program offers a selection of standard environmentally responsible services as well as a variety of optional arrangements.

Meeting Green Dining

Standard services under the new Sands Eco 360 Meetings program give new options for green dining that include serving cuisine and beverages with reusable glassware to minimize waste; utilizing cloth tablecloths and napkins for banquets; serving water in pitchers or coolers instead of in individual bottles to reduce plastic; eliminating pre-filled water glasses during dining to reduce water waste and caterers are also willing to reduce ice use in drinking water if requested. 

Upon request the Sands Eco 360 Meetings green dining program component provides disposable containers made from biodegradable materials or those made with recycled content; compostable or recycled content napkins; eco friendly bottled water; locally grown or seasonal food when available; organic, fair trade or shade-grown coffee and teas and seafood can be served according to Marine Stewardship Council, Monterey Bay Seafood Watch and/or Blue Ocean Institute seafood standards. 

“We see a growing interest from our customers to conduct business in an environmentally responsible way,” says Yu. “The program is based on several components, one is our study on industry standards as well as what our peers do and how we can even improve from that prospective.”

Meeting Conservation

Under this new program, electronic sales tools are used during the planning process to conserve paper materials. Guests also get standard paperless check in and video check out, and e-billing is used to reduce the use of paper, shipping costs and labor and bulk purchasing, a move to reduce packaging for materials. Additionally, business centers use paper with recycled content and provide double-sided printing and use remanufactured ink cartridges. 

Extra services available on request for conservation practices include providing reusable whiteboards with non-toxic dry erase marker instead of paper flip charts—if a paper chart is needed they will be those made from recycled content. Sustainable decorations are also available, like plotted plants or artificial flowers, and pens and notepads made from recycled content can be provided upon request to event guests.

“We’ve tracked all of our customer requests in the past two years, we have a very comprehensive spreadsheet that tracks exactly what the customer asks for,” says Yu. “It’s very interesting, they all ask for different things and they have interests unique to their programs. We have some customers who ask us track electricity, natural gas and water for their specific event and they also ask us to calculate the carbon footprint of their events. Some customers even ask us what percentage of green cleaning products do we use.”

Reclaiming, Education and Positive Energy

Other standard services in the new meeting program include recycling 55 percent of solid waste from glass, plastics, aluminum, cardboard and paper; recycling 75 percent of food waste as animal feed at a local farm; giving unused food from events to Sands team members or donating them to a local shelter; recycling leftover trade show materials or donating them to local charities and also recycling batteries, CFL light bulbs, print cartridges and office supplies. Recycling bins on site for an event be provided upon request.

“We just hosted a very big event on property and they liked us to partner with their compost program,” says Yu. “Traditionally, we reuse our food products through a local pig farm so through that program we actually piled up and composted all their food through a local vendor and we actually composted around 37,000 pounds. This is a development process of our program.”

To help reinforce theses initiatives, knowledgeable Sands consultants are available to work with meeting planners to develop their very own Sands Eco 360 Meeting. A new standard component for the program helps to keep lighting and temperature levels at minimal force on non-event days and thermostats and sensors are used to control temperatures in meeting rooms and office spaces. Escalators are turned off when spaces are not in use and carbon offset, soap and recycling programs are also standardly available. 

“We’re a green building in the area of water, energy conservation, recycling, quality control, green dining and social responsibility,” she says. “Meeting customers can pick and choose what they want to do and they can give specific requests. Our team is very accommodating and we can customize their programs to their needs.”