The document and the buyers it addresses
Radisson Hotel Group and the Global Destination Sustainability Movement published “Accelerating Sustainable & Regenerative Events: A Guide for Associations & PCOs.” The file runs 12 pages. Its cover reads “Prepared for Radisson Hotel Group by GDS-Movement.” Antonia Alomar of GDS-Movement wrote it. Radisson Hotels provided design and editing.
The content came from a session at the Radisson Collection Hotel, Grand Place Brussels on 5 December 2025. More than 30 representatives attended from the hotel, association, PCO, CVB and venue sectors.
The line the guide gives a buyer
The guide hands the buyer one instruction for the request for proposal: “Ask for the GDS-Index in your RFP; this will save you a lot of time assessing a destination’s sustainability efforts.”
Its key planning priorities run alongside it. Integrate sustainability requirements into the RFP. Choose venues that hold valid sustainability certifications. Ask about the transport incentives you can pass to participants. Request destination guides, toolkits and legacy-planning resources. Enquire about funding and support.
What a destination answers
86 percent of the GDS-Index destinations where Radisson operates share sustainability information in RFP responses and sales materials. 100 percent provide sustainability tools and manuals. 83 percent tell organisers how to cut the carbon impact of their events.
The certification shares run 59 percent of hotel rooms, 43 percent of PCOs and 74 percent of major congress venues.
Subvention sits in 77 percent of those destinations. 20 percent offer fully integrated support packages and 29 percent facilitate partnerships between organisers and local stakeholders. A September 2025 survey by Conferli, #MEET4IMPACT and GDS-Movement carries those three shares. Berlin pays 25 euros per in-person attendee for a one-day meeting with a minimum of 50 participants.
On mobility, 86 percent provide low-carbon guidance, 45 percent offer free or discounted public transport to all convention and congress visitors, and 64 percent offer it for selected conventions and congresses.
On legacy, 74 percent run a food donation programme and 62 percent run one for surplus event materials. 74 percent publish a list of organisations that offer social support and volunteering. 64 percent share a carbon-offsetting programme.
The two headline figures the cited study does not carry
The launch release opens with three figures. 66 percent of associations consider sustainability highly important. Fewer than 34 percent have embedded it into their operations. Only 3 percent report an advanced sustainability programme.
The guide footnotes its figures to “The State of Sustainability in Associations: ICCA/Destination Canada 2025.” That survey was fielded from May to August 2025 and published in November 2025. It collected 249 responses.
The 66 percent figure holds. The survey splits it into 45 percent very important and 21 percent extremely important, against 60 percent in 2023.
The report carries no advanced-programme measure. Its integration measures read event planning procedures 62 percent, business and strategic planning 50 percent, organisational policies 38 percent, requests for proposal 34 percent, event code of conduct 33 percent and transport and travel policy 29 percent. Its own 34 percent figure covers respondents who reported no change in participant demand.
The indicator count inside the issuers’ own documents
The release states that destinations are assessed against 74 qualitative and quantitative indicators. The guide prints 76 twice. Page four reads “built on 76 qualitative and quantitative indicators” and then “76 qualitative and quantitative criteria.”
Radisson’s own portfolio figures
As of 2024, 58 percent of the Radisson portfolio holds verification under the Hotel Sustainability Basics standard or a third-party eco-label such as Green Key. The 2024 Responsible Business Report records a 33 percent cut in carbon emissions per square metre and a 21 percent cut in energy footprint per occupied room under Think Planet, both against a 2019 baseline.
The file dates
The guide PDF runs 12 pages. Its file metadata records a creation date of 8 May 2026 and names Adobe InDesign 21.2 as its producer. Hotel News Resource carries the release text in full and dates its copy 17 September 2026.
What to ask for before quoting it
Ask the destination for the certification document behind each share. Ask the venue for its own certificate. Request the ICCA/Destination Canada 2025 report before a bid quotes the 3 percent figure or the 34 percent figure.