Book a meeting, plant a tree

I get tons of hotels promising me everything from an iPod to their first-born child if only I’d bring a meeting to their property, but this one really stands out from the crowd: Skamania Lodge in Oregon is sending live ponderosa pine trees to planners as part of its “Book a Meeting, Plant a Forest” campaign (good for meetings booked this summer). You not only get extras and good rates, they say; “100 trees will be planted in the company’s name to reforest areas in the West…It just started last month, but the campaign already has attracted two dozen meeting events,” according to this story in the Oregonian. I don’t have any business for them, but I do like the idea. I wish we saw more of the public-minded incentives, rather than those icky offers of personal points, vacations, and other things that smell more like bribery than incentives.