How PCMA Is Planning the Most Sustainable Convening Leaders Ever in Philadelphia

How PCMA Is Planning the Most Sustainable Convening Leaders Ever in Philadelphia

It’s often called the Super Bowl of the Meetings Industry. When it comes to Philly to kick off 2026, the clear champion will be the planet.

There’s one big challenge facing the business events industry: Many meeting professionals  aren’t quite sure how to craft a strategy to minimize waste while maximizing the positive impacts of bringing people together. For PCMA, showing how to solve that challenge is one of the top priorities when designing the association’s flagship event, Convening Leaders.

“Our programs do more than educate the leading business events strategists who are part of the PCMA community,” Sherrif Karamat, CAE, PCMA and CEMA President & CEO said. “They are designed to help them recognize the essential role they can play in powering change.”

As the association gears up to host Convening Leaders 2026 in Philadelphia, PCMA is working closely with the Pennsylvania Convention Center to show that a four-day meeting can make a lasting world of difference.

Raising the Bar Year After Year

After earning the highest distinction available for an event — Platinum Level Certification from the Events Industry Council’s (EIC) Sustainable Event Standards — in 2025, PCMA is facing a tough question: how to get even better at delivering an experience that benefits the planet. “When you’re as far along as we are, you have to constantly think about how to innovate,” Karla Zander, director of operations and experience at PCMA, said.

That innovation ideation process doesn’t sit squarely on PCMA’s shoulders, though. Since May, PCMA has been participating in regular calls with the Pennsylvania Convention Center, along with sustainability consulting firm Honeycomb Strategies. Janet Mitrocsak, director of facilities, regional director of operations at Legends Global, said that the convention center has worked with Honeycomb for several years, including on its recent achievement of earning Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) v4.1 Operations + Maintenance (O+M): Existing Buildings Silver certification. That relationship also includes efforts for sustainability-focused events like the Greenbuild International Conference and Natural Products Expo. The convention center’s team has utilized lessons from some of those programs in the brainstorming process for Convening Leaders.

“PCMA’s team looks to push the boundaries of event experience design with a heavy interest in sustainability,” Mitrocsak said. “We are thrilled to partner with them to educate the entire events community on the possibilities to deliver more impactful programs.”

Innovation in Action

Part of pushing those boundaries will involve moving from a standard two-bin waste system to three bins — with one dedicated for composting — around the Pennsylvania Convention Center. Mitrocsak said that the venue doesn’t arrange composting at every event due to a mix of additional costs and a high likelihood of cross-contamination. However, a plan with color-coded bins, a dedicated sorting area and additional staff will simplify the process while diverting an exponential amount of waste from landfills.

Photo courtesy of the PA Convention Center

In addition to finding a better use for food scraps, it seems unlikely that nearly anything from the program will wind up in a landfill. PCMA is working with Levy on a system to maintain potential surplus food in covered bins as long as possible to preserve the option for donation. Outside of the menu, the program’s badges and lanyards are all recyclable. Prior to the close of the program, PCMA’s team will work with the Philadelphia CVB to review all the materials used in experiential activations to identify potential uses in organizations around the city. Yoga mats, for example, may be able to head to kindergarten classrooms for a new life as nap pads.

Even the products that may not be able to find an immediate new home will avoid the landfill, thanks to the venue’s construction and demolition recycling stream. Mitrocsak pointed out that the single-stream allows for move-in/move-out materials such as booths, metals, pallets, banners and small amounts of bricks or concrete to avoid the landfill. “Our waste management contractor has a sub contract with a construction and demolition recovery center,” Mitrocsak said. “We had been trying to make the process easy for staff and clients, and this arrangement is ideal for everyone. The sorting has to happen at the recovery center anyway, which makes this simple and drives up our waste diversion rate.”

Making a Difference for the Community

While sustainability often feels synonymous with the environment, its definition is much broader. “Sustainability incorporates much more than green practices,” Mitrocsak said. “It has evolved to include social responsibility including diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility.”

For Karamat and PCMA, that wider definition lays the foundation of the Convening Leaders program. Participants can engage in a series of “Do Good, Feel Good” service projects to sort donated items and assemble furniture for individuals transitioning into stable homes with Pathways to Housing PA. In 2026, the organization will add a never-been-done-before initiative: an on-site blood drive. The American Red Cross headquarters for the southeastern Pennsylvania region located less than a mile from the convention center, so it is an easy opportunity to connect the business events community with the city’s local difference-makers.

The program may be just around the corner — Convening Leaders kicks off on January 11 — but the events team and the convention center are continuing to look for additional opportunities to up-level sustainability efforts. When participants do arrive, they’ll get a chance to get a behind-the-scenes look at how it all came together with two on-site tours that showcase the sustainability and accessibility initiatives. After those tours are over, the lessons will continue as participants explore Philadelphia — the first-ever certified Sensory Inclusive city and a LEED Platinum-certified destination.

“Sustainability has no official end goal,” Karamat said. “It’s about making progress a constant, rather than a cause for celebration. I look forward to continuing the journey to inspire the business events community to be catalysts for change in the world.”

Coming to Philadelphia for Convening Leaders? Even your trip here will be innovative, thanks to a new PCMA program that will use registration data to offset carbon emissions from all attendee travel.