We speak with Ben Quarrell, who has recently set up Sustainability Simplified, a consultancy helping event industry businesses make go greener.
Former isla Co-Founder Ben Quarrell and major event expert Poppy Stephenson have launched Sustainability Simplified, a consultancy that helps event and media businesses achieve their sustainability goals quicker. We spoke with Ben about founding the new consultancy, and he shared how his previous experiences led him to the launch.
“My background is in event production, and I then moved into sustainability, which I really enjoyed,” Ben said. “Poppy and I have worked really well together. We first collaborated on a festival back in 2008, so we know each other really well. Both of us are really frustrated that a lot of people who have the knowledge about sustainability want to really prove their knowledge, which ends up with things being surrounded in a lot of jargon. It is a difficult topic, but people seem to make it more complicated than it needs to be. There are so many tools on the market now, but you still need somebody who’s got that events knowledge combined with key experience in sustainability to really help companies navigate a simple path through it. So that’s where Poppy and I decided to team up.”
It was a more personal reason, however, that got Ben into sustainability initially: “In 2018, when my daughter was born, I was kind of thinking: ‘What am I going to say in ten years’ time when she asks me what I did to alleviate the climate crisis?’ Then, I spent all my spare time at the agency I was working at finding out how to be more sustainable and basically trained myself up. I read everything I could and tried to really understand the practical elements of what is required.”
The idea behind Sustainability Simplified is making a concrete difference without overcomplicating the process: “With consultancy, often people will come in and advise you on what you should do, and then you end up back where you started. We go into a business, understand how they work, and then try to tweak their existing processes incorporate sustainable processes.”
Simple practical advice is the name of the game when it comes to getting event industry businesses to start making a difference: “We start off with getting the client understanding what they need to do track their emissions and then start reducing it. It has to be really practical because we understand the science, but the businesses don’t need to understand that they just need steps to start reducing their impact. Without the complicated science behind it, it becomes much easier for event planners to start making practical decisions.”
Make a start to achieve your sustainability goals quicker. Contact Ben at www.sustainabilitysimplified.co.uk