GREEN MICEs can help the industry to contribute tremendous value and drive for economic growth while still mitigating the negative impact caused by its vast consumption. As part of its “MEET TAIWAN” program and green trading solutions, the Taiwanese Bureau of Foreign Trade (BOFT), which oversees the country’s MICE sector, enthusiastically champions the new “Green MICE” notion as MICEs worldwide seek to reduce their environmental impact.

BOFT, through Taiwan’s MICE Promotion Program (MEET TAIWAN), assisted APCAT-6’s organizing unit with carbon footprint computation in 2013. This endeavor saw the Catalysis Society of Taiwan and Elite Professional Conference Organizer, the organizers and implementers for APCAT-6 respectively, start a 4-day data collection process on October 14, 2013 that covered both pre-and post-event information that was submitted to TAITRA and the Environmental Science Technology Consultants Co, for evaluation. With an estimated 470 metric tons of CO2e in 2013, APCAT-6 achieved the PAS 2050:2011 standard published by British Standards Institution (BSI).

Leveraging on the MEET TAIWAN program, the southern Taiwan-based International Convention Center Kaohsiung (ICCK) formed a “GHG Inventory Team” to compute GHG emissions for its entire venue between September 2012 and August 2013. With an estimated CO2e of 682 metric tons, ICCK obtained the BSI-issued ISO 14064-1 verification statement and became the first MICE venue in southern Taiwan to carry out GHG inventories.

In the course of evaluating carbon footprints and GHG emissions inventories, MICE organizing units and other stakeholders were better able to pinpoint the hotspot areas of high energy use and GHG emissions, with the data collected benefiting future MICEs or venue management decisions. They can also apply concepts such as energy efficiency and eco-sustainability to MICE practices in order to take Taiwanese MICEs one step closer to the “green” goal.