MPI officially launched a new online sustainability event measurement tool at the World Education Conference here. The tool, which is free to MPI members and accessible at www. mpiweb.org, is designed to assist planners in measuring the environmental impact of their meetings and reducing carbon footprints.

The tool was developed in collaboration with the Green Meetings industry Council with a funding investment from MPI, and guided by MPI's CSR advisory council with members from Oracle, the United Nations, Intercontinental Hotels Group and Microsoft.

According to Bruce MacMillan, president and CEO of MPI, members can “utilize this tool to simplify and standardize the measurement of their event impacts and contribute to the aggregate data MPI collects in an effort to continually benchmark progress in CSR initiatives within our industry.”

Features of the tool include capabilities for both planners and suppliers; measurement and reporting of events' water, waste, energy, paper, food and community impacts; planning questions formed by industry standards such as APEX and the Global Reporting Initiative; and graphical reports generating and export capabilities.