Manchester has won its bid to host the 6th World Congress on Ecological Restoration, after ’team Manchester’ impressed decision-makers with the city’s sustainable credentials.
The five-day meeting, which takes place 23-27 August 2015, will bring 1,500 delegates to the city in a deal estimated to be worth £3.9m for the local economy.
The congress was secured through a partnership approach between Visit Manchester, Manchester Central, Manchester Metropolitan University’s (MMU) conference office, Meeting Makers, and was led by MMU’s Dr David Haley, as well as supporters including The Biospheric Project at the Manchester International Festival, Positive Impact and Creative Concern.
The Society of Ecological Restoration (SER) plans to use Manchester Central for the main assembly and MMU for pre-conference meetings. The SER praised both venues for their sustainability initiatives, which include Manchester Central being one of the first UK venues to achieve ISO20121 international accreditation, while MMU was recently ranked as the UK’s greenest university.
Later this year Manchester Central will open a new on-site recycling centre, and from January 2014 all clients will be able to get full sustainability reports for their events, allowing them to benchmark their carbon footprint.
“Manchester is increasingly being recognised as a sustainable meetings destination and it’s fantastic that as a city we have an extensive network of green venues and organisations to help secure bids like this,” said MD of Visit Manchester, Paul Simpson. “The process to win the 6th World Congress on Ecological Restoration began with a sales mission to Washington following IMEX America 2012 and this is a prime example of the power of face-to-face meetings yielding results.
David Healy, Manchester Conference Ambassador, added: “Team Manchester were ready to go from the moment we submitted our proposal, and despite strong competition from an exotic competitor, our team’s success is especially due to the coordination by Visit Manchester.
“The team at Visit Manchester assisted with an in-principle subvention award from Manchester City Council to support delegates from developing countries in attending to ensure true international representation at the conference,” he added.
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