4 Ways To Make Transport To Your Event Greener

by Richard Adams
(EcoLivingAdvice.com)

Consider 4 ways to make transport to your event greener

If you're planning a big event such as a birthday party or a wedding reception, then it's likely that you'll have numerous people travelling from quite some distance away. All those half-empty cars of course will increase the carbon footprint of your event and so make it far less eco friendly.

Fortunately with just a little bit of planning there are things you can do to make the way in which your guests get to your event that bit more sustainable - and also a little bit more fun if you do it right.

Set Up Your Communication Channels

It's a good idea if you're planning a big event to have a central place to enable communication about the event. From people asking about start times, dress code and so on, having a place where anyone can ask questions (or see the answers to other people's questions) will make planning transportation much easier as well as cut down on your workload making dozens of phone calls and sending numerous emails.

For the party we recently planned we set up a Facebook group and sent out party invites this way, encouraging anyone considering attending to join the group. This made it far easier to give advice on transportation, link up people who were coming from a similar area and so on so it really acted as "mission control" for keeping our carbon emissions down.

Car Sharing

In general full cars are more environmentally friendly than a larger number of half empty cars, so helping people to get lifts with others travelling from a similar location can make the transport to your event significantly greener.

One way to accomplish this is to ask anyone who plans to drive to post a message to your group so that people can "link up" and give others a lift to the event.

A further tip is all the various lift sharing websites which can be used for free online.

Assuming a guest is coming from an area where no others are from, these websites can be used to find other drivers who may at least be willing to drop them off close to your event where they could walk the last bit.

Organize A Bus

If your event is happening in a large town or city, you might like to consider organizing a minibus to collect all the people who live locally. It could even stop off at local train stations to pick up people who are arriving on public transport. Not only is this environmentally-friendly but it also starts the party early as everyone can chat and get to know each other on the ride to the event.

Plan For Public Transport Links

If you're serious about making travel to your event as green as possible then consider the location of your event in relation to public transport links.

For example could you find a hotel, bar or conference center to base your event at that is very close to a railway station and/or bus stop? If so you can provide train times and so on to your guests to make it as easy as possible for them to utilize public transport rather than unnecessarily driving their own car.