Building a living framework for a more sustainable conference sector

A/Prof Glen Croy, 2026

Purpose

Associate Professor
Glen Croy.

Council for Australasian Tourism and Hospitality Education’s (CAUTHE) sustainability efforts for its conferences were fragmented, without consistent benchmarking or reporting. Glen Croy joined the working group, chaired by Mireia Guix, to embed sustainability systematically into CAUTHE's own conferences and operations.

Practice

As part of the environmental benchmarking sub-group, Glen and Denis Tolkach compared CAUTHE against similar organisations nationally, regionally and internationally, contributing to a shared sustainability resource and reviewing environmental actions, metrics and checklist items over multiple working sessions.

Output

The group delivered a completed sustainability spreadsheet, actions checklist and updated conference guidelines and manual content, presented to the CAUTHE executive committee ahead of its mid-year meeting.

Outcome and impact

CAUTHE now has a living, structured sustainability framework built into its own guidelines – shaping how future conferences and venues are chosen, and positioning CAUTHE as a sustainability leader with the potential to influence peer associations across the tourism and hospitality education sector.