Janette Lampe, Corporate Events Manager at Kaiser Permante takes her green responsibilities seriously. That is why she reached out to Plan It Green to help her plan and execute her recent physician meeting with attention to social and environmental issues.

From selecting the Jacobs Center, a non-profit located in one of San Diego’s most ethnically diverse neighborhoods, to using compostable bags for to-go lunches, responsible planning was clearly evident to the 600+ San Diego physicians at their Quarterly Offsite Meeting on February 10, 2010.

“Throughout the entire planning process, we consider if our decisions are socially and environmentally responsible,” according to Ms. Lampe. The decision to hold the meeting at the Jacobs Center provided Kaiser an opportunity to support a facility that offers numerous programs for one of San Diego’s low-income neighborhoods. For example, many of the meeting wait-staff were participating in a Jacobs Center job training program.

“Working together with the Jacobs Center event team we helped create a lunch that was much more environmentally responsible than first planned,” said Lampe. Originally, each attendee was to receive a pre-packaged box-lunch complete with plastic-wrapped sandwiches, salad in plastic containers and forks. That soon changed. The plastic and cardboard were replaced with 100% compostable lunch bags, salad bowls and forks, and napkins made from recycled content. While pre-packaged lunches were replaced with a buffet style that allowed attendees to choose just the food they would eat.

Since most of the attendees remained at the Center for lunch they were able to use reusable plates, glasses, silverware and cloth napkins. “The new choices significantly reduced the amount of plastic and cardboard as well as potentially wasted food,” added Lampe.

Recycling containers were placed in highly visible locations that made it easy for both wait-staff and attendees to dispose of their empty aluminum cans and plastic yogurt containers. And funds earned from the collected aluminum and plastic went back to the Jacobs Center to support their programs.

Additional initiatives included: documents printed double-sided whenever possible, reusable signage, water glasses on table not pre-filled to save water, and centerpieces available for purchase from small local retailer.