Hawaii Event “Communicating Sustainability in Business”

The annual conference of the Association for Business Communication (ABC) took place in Honolulu from 24th to 27th of October 2012 and was fully centered on the topic of sustainability. The conference carried the topic in the title “Communicating Sustainability in Business”. The sustainability theme was reflected in approximately half of the over 250 academic presentations in the program. Also in the operations of the conference, sustainability received special attention; seasonal and regional food, energy efficiency, responsible give-aways, re-usable conference badges, and the use of social media to reduce the need for print material, are examples of the activities to improve the social and environmental conference footprint.

The Center for Responsible Management Education, had a central advisory role in the conference planning, organization, and management. The founder of CRME, Oliver Laasch, co-chaired the conference with Roger N. Conaway and was involved in the sustainable event management from beginning to end. Exemplary actions undertaken by CRME were the evaluation of sustainability-related conference presentations, academic promotion of the conference, the publication of a “sustainable travel guide” Hawaii, and the organization of the opening panel. The panel chaired by Nick Tolhurst, a prolific author in responsible business, was opened by a keynote speech by Kristen Coco from the United Nations Global Compact, and featured distinguished panel members Shel Horowitz, a green marketing expert, and Jim Henry from the University of Hawaii. For more information, including the conference proceedings, please visit the conference website.