Vancouver - The Ideal Venue For Eco-friendly Events

Vancouver proves the ideal venue for eco-friendly events.

- Ron Bernthal

During my first visit to Vancouver three decades ago, I spent my days walking the city’s wet and foggy streets, spent hours in Chinatown’s 1940s-era Ovaltine Café, ate mussels and oysters at the public market stalls on Granville Island, attended an NHL hockey game and met a pretty girl on the SeaBus to North Vancouver. With snowcapped mountains hovering above the city’s skyline and a chilly sea mist blowing in off the harbor, I could always detect a fresh, cleansing hint of brine in the air.

After several subsequent visits, it is wonderful to see Vancouver, even with all its new glass and steel towers, remains the same magical, breathtakingly beautiful and friendly outpost on the far western edge of the continent. What has changed, however, is Vancouver’s deepening green philosophy, a reality MICE planners truly appreciate.

Vancouver can already claim the smallest carbon footprint of any major North American city. With an ongoing commitment to mixed-use development, abundant green space, efficient public transit and sustainable building standards, it consistently ranks among the world’s greenest cities. Its destination marketing organization, Tourism Vancouver, was the first in North America with a sustainable destination specialist.