Last week, a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between ASTM International and the Convention Industry Council’s Accepted Practices Exchange Commission for the development of environmental standards for the meetings and convention industry.

According to Pat Picariello, director, standards development, ASTM, the core standards for green meetings and events will be initially developed by the APEX initiative and then submitted to ASTM’s sustainability activity for refinement and approval.

ASTM is a 165-person, nonprofit organization that exists to develop standards and has done so in more than 1,000 industries. ASTM worked closely with Sue Tinnish, APEX director, to facilitate the MOU.

Picariello says it has been a collaborative process. “While I think ASTM has a tremendous relevance from the standards process perspective—we are really good at this—relative to the meetings industry our name certainly doesn’t mean as much as an organization like the Convention Industry Council. Right from the beginning, we recognized the expertise they provide, and the intent was to work collaboratively. When the subcommittee was organized, a vote was taken to ensure that would happen.”

ASTM’s work on green meetings and events presently resides as a task group within the Sustainability Subcommittee of ASTM’s Main Committee on Performance of Buildings. On October 1, in Miami, ASTM will hold an organizational meeting for a new main committee on sustainable development.