By Simon Hainsworth, Managing Director of Corporate & Sporting Events Management (CSE)
This year’s Olympic Games in Paris saw sustainability placed front and centre, with a heavy focus on emissions reduction and an unprecedented £1.2 billion invested in the cleanup of the River Seine.
With the complexity of logistics involved in delivering a large-scale event, events themselves can account for a high degree of needless waste if not managed properly. With this in mind, we are seeing how the events industry is leading the charge when it comes to adopting more sustainable practices, and how events organisers, managers and service providers are embracing this responsibility, boosting awareness within their own industry and beyond.
Sustainable Venues
As the focal point of many mass-participation events, venues have both a huge role and responsibility to play in creating less wasteful and more sustainable events.
Venues are increasingly looking at how they can reduce their impact on the environment and adopt greener initiatives to offset waste and emissions. The iconic SSE Hydro in Glasgow, for example, is powered by hydroelectricity, as well as having installed energy-saving LED lighting. These initiatives work to not only create a more environmentally friendly venue, but also set new standards of excellence for similar venues.
Waste management is another key aspect when it comes to creating greener venues, with many large events producing high levels of waste. Many forward-thinking venues and event organisers are already adopting a zero-waste approach, utilising large-scale recycling programmes and banning or significantly reducing the use of single-use plastics. Glastonbury festival has, for example, banned the sale of single-use plastic bottles since 2019. This single initiative has since saved an estimated 1.7 million bottles from ending up in landfill.
Greener Transport
Events of any size require effective transportation, but the transport logistics of large events in particular can be a challenge. Domestic transport accounts for one third of total carbon emissions, and of this, 39% comes from the passenger miles generated by leisure activities. Understandably, there is a mounting pressure for the events industry to adopt greener solutions to mass transportation.
Public transport, particularly in the countries such as the UK with highly developed public transport systems, is the obvious solution. A single passenger in a car is responsible for 344.2g of Co2 emissions, compared with just 26.97g for 40 people on a coach.
Those within the events sector are already working hard to incentivise public transport, whether through organising regular shuttle bus services, or disincentivising people from bringing their own vehicle through higher parking charges.
Where public transport is not possible or practical, we are also seeing efforts being made to encourage the more environmentally friendly use of cars. The Download Festival is one example, implementing a system of encouraging those bringing a car to fill all available seats by offering VIP passes to attendees arriving with full vehicles.
Leveraging Technology
The potential for technology as a key to more sustainable events is huge, with solutions that address a wide range of the challenges and barrier to greener events on a mass scale.
One straightforward way technology and digital alternatives are already doing this is through the reduction of paper. Solutions such as event apps and event management software, as well as virtual tickers, programmes and other assets are all helping to streamline the delivery of events while significantly reducing paper waste.
These solutions extend to transport, too, with ridesharing and other communications apps reducing the rates of under-utilised vehicles, allowing attendees to travel to and from events more sustainably. Smart parking solutions are similarly vital in proactively optimising parking space.
Certain types of events are also increasingly benefiting from virtual conferencing technology and live streaming, making remote participation a real solution to reducing the carbon footprint of these events.
Incentivising Sustainability
While there are widespread examples of how the events industry is embracing a more sustainable approach, those within events management and logistics also have an important role to play.
Making a commitment to supporting these ongoing efforts to adopt sustainable practices and educating clients on sustainable options not only bolsters the efforts of the industry as a whole, but also works to strengthen new and existing client relationships.
Forming partnerships with service providers that are committed to following sustainable practices, such as in the case of accommodation providers, is crucial to brining these efforts to the forefront, demonstrating there is a better way of doing things while setting a new benchmark in industry standards.
Final thoughts
With every industry having their own part to play in sustainability, the environmental impacts of events both large and small cannot be ignored.
From a business perspective, adopting a more sustainable approach helps to attract environmentally conscious attendees while also enhancing the reputations of events, venues and those throughout the industry, but perhaps more importantly, these efforts are also important from an ethical standpoint. There is no ‘Planet B’, and our sustainability efforts are now more important than ever.
