CSR & Sustainability

Making HERstory 2024 an Impactful Experience for Attendees

The last Wednesday in March has become synonymous with Making HERstory Day at Georgia World Congress Center. GWCCA hosted its 2nd Annual Making HERstory event on March 27, 2024, where attendees gathered in Georgia World Congress Center Building C. They were greeted by a variety of local vendors as well snacks […]

Georgia World Congress Center Authority to honor women leaders during 2nd Annual Making HERstory event in celebration of Women’s History Month

Georgia World Congress Center Authority (GWCCA) announced the return of its highly anticipated event, the 2nd Annual Making HERstory, in celebration of Women’s History Month. Scheduled for March 27, 2024, from 1:00 pm to 6:00 pm ET at Auditorium C101 of the Georgia World Congress Center (GWCC), Making HERstory aims to honor the achievements of […]

Georgia World Congress Center Authority to Host Diverse Business Summit

Georgia attracts more than 152 million domestic and international guests each year, presenting a tremendous opportunity for local, small businesses to reach new audiences. GWCCA is dedicated to helping increase opportunities to its campus and tourism for emerging and small businesses.

Georgia World Congress Center Authority Launches Community Legacy Program in Partnership with Signia by Hilton Atlanta

Last week, Georgia World Congress Center Authority (GWCCA), in partnership with Signia by Hilton Atlanta, launched its Community Legacy Program designed to make an impact on the Atlanta community in four key focus areas: Education, Food Insecurity, Homelessness, and Human Trafficking. The launch of the program aligned with the grand opening of the hotel which is located on GWCCA’s championship campus. Signia by Hilton Atlanta officially started welcoming guests this month.

GWCCA Team Members Lend a Hand

In July, Georgia World Congress Center Authority team members took their brand service promise to create compelling experiences off championship campus as a team of volunteers served at Open Hand Atlanta, packing nearly two thousand health-promoting meals for their neighbors who are homebound, disabled, or simply too sick to prepare their own meals.

GWCCA Team Members Volunteer for Earth Day 2023

As part of Georgia World Congress Center Authority’s commitment to support sustainability on its campus and throughout its community, GWCCA team members dug in at Truly Living Well Center for Natural Urban Agriculture in April. Truly Living Well is the largest urban farm in Georgia, and it educates and trains the community to achieve sustainable […]

Making HERstory Tea Wraps up GWCCA’s WHM Celebrations

The inaugural Making HERstory Tea event wrapped up The Authority’s Women’s History Month celebrations on Wednesday with a fireside chat between GWCCA’s Chief Administrative Officer Jen LeMaster and Director of Strategic Partnerships Shavannia Williams. The fireside chat was followed by a panel discussion with women leaders from the convention, sports, and entertainment industry from around Atlanta.

GWCCA Celebrates Sustainability with re:loom

GWCCA team members have been volunteering at the re:loom store throughout the month of March, where they work on repurposing recycled fabrics to make new products for the community.

GWCC Hosts 9/11 Day Foundation’s annual National Day of Service & Remembrance

Georgia World Congress Center hosted the 9/11 Day Foundation’s annual National Day of Service and Remembrance community service activity for Atlanta last Saturday. In remembrance of the 20th anniversary of the attacks of September 11, 2001, the foundation hosted a meal packing event in Building C of GWCC. The 9/11 Day is a non-profit created […]

Happy Summer & Pollinator Week from the GWCCA Honeybees!

GWCCA bees are back and bee-tter than ever! But what exactly have our bees been up to this year? In January, our bees were in a temporary location near our loading docks, awaiting a brand new home adjacent to the beltline connector. Inside the hives, the honeybees were clustered in a ball around the queen […]

GWCCA Earth Month Volunteer Planting

The Authoricast | Episode 15: Behind the Bees-iness with Bee Downtown

On the newest episode of The Authoricast we have a chat with the founder and CEO of Bee Downtown, Leigh-Kathryn Bonner as a part of our earth month content here at GWCCA.. Bee Downtown installs and maintains beehives on corporate campuses including ours, that rebuild healthy honeybee populations while simultaneously powering Employee Engagement Programming and […]

Urban Beekeeping Panel Discussion

Poached Peach Salad with GWCCA Executive Chef Billy Velasquez

To celebrate Earth Month, Georgia World Congress Center Authority Executive Chef Billy Velasquez and Janet Sevilla (Manager, Sustainability & CSR) offered a simple recipe utilizing fresh honey from on-site bees to make at home. The GWCC Peach Salad utilizes poached peaches and the house special Green Goodness Honey Dressing.

GWCCA Beehives Photo Gallery

GWCCA Bees are Back!

Georgia World Congress Center Authority and Bee Downtown are happy to welcome back bees to Championship Campus! The partnership between GWCCA’s Corporate Sustainability & Responsibility department and Bee Downtown is in its fourth year of existence.

Earth Day: Celebrating the successes of Greenbuild at GWCCA

With Earth Day celebrating its 50th anniversary on Wednesday (April 22), it’s a great opportunity to dive into the recently-published results from the world’s largest gathering of green building professionals dedicated to sustainability in the built environment. We’re talking about the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo, of course, which was held in November on the […]

Tuesday Talk: The Night the Lights Went Out at GWCCA

Tuesday Talk rounds up the latest Georgia World Congress Center Authority (GWCCA) news you might have missed and also points forward to upcoming events on our campus. When the lights went out Saturday night (March 28) on GWCCA’s downtown Atlanta campus it wasn’t an accident, grid malfunction or anything to do with the coronavirus pandemic. Rather, […]

GWCCA grew partnership with Junior Achievement in 2019

As 2019 comes to a close, taking stock of the year’s accomplishments is top of mind for many businesses and organizations, and the Georgia World Congress Center Authority (GWCCA) is no exception. The Authority continued to fulfill its mission of creating economic benefits for the Peach State and its capital city in 2019. But new […]

Greenbuild shines green light on GWCCA’s green campus

The exterior of Mercedes-Benz Stadium was bathed in green light Thursday (Nov. 21) night, while inside the venue Atlanta-based rockers Collective Soul headlined the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo’s Greenbuild Celebration. The first professional sports stadium in the U.S. to achieve LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum status, it was a fitting site […]

GWCCA’s new hillside urban garden connects and protects pollinators

Campus Horticulturalist Steve Ware has to fight his basic landscaping instincts when it comes to the Georgia World Congress Center Authority’s (GWCCA) new urban pocket garden. Installed on a steep grade off of Ivan Allen Jr., Blvd. in an area known affectionally as “Goat Hill,” Ware’s latest campus horticulture venture is designed to sustain native […]

Imagine a day without water on the GWCCA campus?

H20 doesn’t necessarily come to mind when you think about the Georgia World Congress Center Authority’s (GWCCA) sprawling 220-acre downtown Atlanta campus. Yet, water plays an important day-to-day role, from operations to aesthetics to the guest experience. For instance, what would Centennial Olympic Park be without its iconic Fountain of Rings which provides hours of […]

GWCCA recycling and waste diversion: One event’s trash is another organization’s treasure

The Georgia World Congress Center Authority’s (GWCCA) downtown Atlanta campus hosts hundreds of events each year. From top trade shows and conventions to major sporting events to outdoor music festivals, the GWCCA hosts it all. But what happens to the trash after these mega-events end? Many people don’t think about this. To put on a sizeable trade […]

National Indoor Plant Week: Meet the GWCCA’s Plant Lady

Around the corridors, office spaces and massive concourses inside the facilities that make up the Georgia World Congress Center Authority’s (GWCCA) downtown Atlanta complex, Mashid Irvani is widely known as “The Plant Lady.” Irvani, an interior plant specialist for The Garden Design Group, is, in fact, THE Plant Lady, by trade and in spirit. In […]

Smart City Expo: Making sustainability sexy and measurable

Waste diversion. Carbon footprint. Net positive. Circular economy. Materiality matrix. Sustainability in the public arena isn’t just a bunch of buzzwords, it’s sound business practices, smart marketing and making our cities better places to live. And organizations – especially government agencies – need to shout from the rooftops about their measurable sustainability initiatives in easily-relatable […]

Tuesday Talk: Atlanta’s championship campus gets greener

Tuesday Talk rounds up the latest Georgia World Congress Center Authority (GWCCA) news you might have missed and also points forward to upcoming events on our campus. Last week the GWCCA’s good neighbor, State Farm Arena, took its sustainability game to a new level, making the country’s greenest concentration of public assembly venues and attractions […]

Give blood: GWCCA efforts support American Red Cross

Every 8 minutes the American Red Cross (ARC) responds to someone in crisis. Hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis, wildfires, home fires, flooding, and other natural disasters can strike at any time, in any place in the world. In the last two weeks alone, dangerous storms have wreaked havoc from the Midwest to the Northeast, resulting in at […]

Super Bowl Sustainability: Atlanta passes symbolic Golden Shovel to Miami

Atlanta has officially sent the National Football League (NFL) packing for Miami after hosting a successful Super Bowl LIII. While the majority of football-related events wrapped up in February, the Golden Shovel Ceremony didn’t take place until May 9. Each year, the NFL’s Environmental Program leaders, Jack Groh and Susan Groh, ceremonially transition to the […]

Earth Day Challenge: Planners needed to move green meetings needle

As we celebrate Earth Day today, it’s probably not a surprise that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) once deemed the convention industry more wasteful than all but one other industry. As a result, many convention centers have placed environmental responsibility at the forefront of operations. When I began at the Georgia World Congress Center […]

Bee Downtown CEO: Sustainability is GWCCA's "Beesness"

Every once in a while, you meet someone that “gets it.” Someone that truly gets the importance of using business as a force for environmental good. Last year I was working to expand my North Carolina-based business Bee Downtown with our first forrays into Atlanta. At Bee Downtown we install and maintain beehives on corporate […]

Bee Downtown CEO: Sustainability is GWCCA’s “Beesness”

Super Bowl LIII’s super sustainability

The week of Jan. 13-19 was unofficially “green week” for Atlanta’s Super Bowl LIII sustainability activities, part of the Atlanta Super Bowl Host Committee’s Legacy 53 initiative. On both Jan. 15 and Jan. 19, two of the final urban forestry projects were completed. The first, located at the Salvation Army Bellwood Boys and Girls Club […]

Super Bowl LIII's super sustainability

Centennial Olympic Park plants majestic holiday tree

Despite the week’s cold and wet weather, Centennial Olympic Park has planted a new beacon of holiday cheer that should last throughout the year – and many more to come. Towering more than 30 feet high, and weighing in at 30,000 pounds (soaking wet), a deodar cedar imported from South Carolina found its new home […]

GWCCA leading the South in hospitality and sustainability

Sustainability and the hospitality industry haven’t always gone hand-in-hand. In fact, it wasn’t too long ago that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) deemed the convention industry the second most wasteful industry behind only building and construction. This was attributed to the carbon footprint resulting from the sheer amount of air travel, electricity, and food […]

First-year results show GWCCA energy savings project a sustainability success

A little more than a year into a 17-year guaranteed energy savings performance contract (ESPC) with global heating and cooling company Trane, the 220-acre Georgia World Congress Center Authority (GWCCA) campus has reduced utility costs by 43 percent compared to a 2013 baseline. The first-year results show enough electricity was saved to power approximately 2,300 […]

New beehives creating a sustainability buzz on GWCCA campus

Today the Georgia World Congress Center Authority (GWCCA) unveiled the organization’s first-ever beehives on our downtown Atlanta campus. Located in the grassy pocket park on the southwest corner of Northside Drive and Boone Boulevard, three new hives were introduced to Authority team members and media amidst activities such as honey tastings, a do-it-yourself pollinator kit […]

Food bank donations needed more than ever during summer months

Summer should be a time when children are carefree and enjoy the bounty of the season. Unfortunately, it presents a significant food gap for many when free and reduced meals come to an end with the last day of school. Although many metro Atlanta school districts will be back in session in the coming weeks, […]

Soccer, sustainability and Atlanta's World Cup bid

***** UPDATE: Today, FIFA chose North America as host of the 2026 World Cup, with Atlanta as a possible site for tournament games at Mercedes-Benz Stadium (MBS) on the Georgia World Congress Center Authority campus. If MBS hosts games, the adjacent Georgia World Congress Center will house the World Cup media center. *****

Soccer, sustainability and Atlanta’s World Cup bid

GWCCA Corporate Social Responsibility Manager discusses resiliency in the hospitality industry

After years of notoriety, many hospitality ventures have embraced the focus of environmental sustainability. In fact, some are even considered leaders in the movement to combat climate change by engaging stakeholders through education, building certifications, and transparent reporting. With new and unprecedented global volatility and interconnectedness, the marketplace has required a shift to planning for […]

From doghouses to Habitat houses, Coverings '18 makes charitable connections at GWCC

Move over Snoopy, you’re not the only pup with a tricked-out doghouse. Charlie Brown’s infamous pooch often decorated the gable roof of his iconic red abode to match the season, and it also served as an imaginary Sopwith Camel fighter plane during Snoopy’s World War I Flying Ace fantasies. But he never had a customized […]

From doghouses to Habitat houses, Coverings ’18 makes charitable connections at GWCC

Reimagined employee cafe reflects Earth Month and GWCCA values

Last week, the Authority held the grand opening of our new team member dining experience, Bridge Point, in an area of the Georgia World Congress Center not seen by the general public. Bridge Point is a project I’ve been involved with for more than two years. Its predecessor, the Getaway Café, had become dated since […]

Step Right Up: SweetWater 420 auction offers memorabilia and experiences

SweetWater 420 Fest and GWCCA make symbiotic Earth Day match

First celebrated 48 years ago this month as a singular occurrence recognizing the health of the natural environment, Earth Day (April 22) has since blossomed into a month-long global campaign around environmental protection and awareness. This year’s theme for Earth Day is plastic pollution prevention. More than six billion tons of plastic is disposed of […]

Goats graze GWCCA's grassy gradient

They’re baaaaaaaaaack! The goats, that is. More than 40 goats and two guard dogs have descended on the Georgia World Congress Center Authority campus to assist with landscaping. Located on the large hill just south of Ivan Allen Jr. Boulevard and north of GWCC’s Building B, the goats are baaah-ck for their bi-annual maintenance of […]

Goats graze GWCCA’s grassy gradient

Counting green cars: GWCCA embraces fuel and vehicle alternatives

As the Georgia World Congress Center Authority (GWCCA) prepares to host the 2018 Atlanta International Auto Show this week (Wednesday, March 21 through Sunday, March 25), a jolt of energy can be expected around the industry’s recent shift toward hybrids and electric vehicles (EVs). Last year, Swedish automaker Volvo announced that by 2019 it will […]

KP and NBA’s Total Health Forum dovetails with GWCCA’s mindset

Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) president Lisa Borders believes in the adage that health is our greatest wealth. “If you are not healthy, you can’t get anything done, and you can’t help anyone else,” Borders said during the 3rd annual Total Health Forum hosted by Kaiser Permanente and the National Basketball Association (NBA) on Thursday […]