Event Sustainability Consultant, Jules Carey, offers some advice to move forward along your business’s sustainability journey.
In the last decade, sustainable operations have switched from a ‘nice to have’ to essential for most event businesses. Many event professionals have already taken their first steps along the road of their sustainability journey. Once you’ve got the basics down, the question that pops up next for many of us is: ‘Ok, what now?’ We spoke to Event Sustainability Consultant, Jules Carey, to find out.
Originally from New Zealand, Jules came to the UK in 2007, working in experiential events and conferences. Organising events was what triggered Jules’ interest in sustainability: “I got really disillusioned with the waste involved in the events, and I found myself spending just as much time trying to repurpose every element of the job as I did in pre-production.”
Beyond the basic small changes that are en vogue and ingrained in the public consciousness already, one of the best more in-depth actions to take to reduce your event’s carbon footprint is to measure different aspects of the experience: “Everyone is now using reusable water bottles and trying not to give away too much plastic tat at their events. I don’t want to belittle anyone’s effort, because any effort is great, but those things are barely scratching the surface. After the basics, the most important thing to start getting a picture of where you’re at, is you need to start measuring your events.”
Measuring the impact of your event doesn’t have to be an all-at-once undertaking, and some progress is better than none at all: “There’s no need to measure every single thing that happens and goes on, but if you have a recurring event, like an annual conference, you could pick one of two elements to measure. For example, you could measure travel and food and beverage, and just look at those two things and work out the carbon footprint of those, then you have something to aim to improve on next year because there is actual solid data.”
However, measurement isn’t an option for every business and there are other paths to take if that is the case for you: “If that feels like too big of a leap, one of the other things I’d suggest would be starting to talk to your suppliers to get them on board. If you have suppliers that you use every single time then you’re very valuable to them. Asking them to make even small changes such as not shrink wrapping products when they send them to you does make a difference.”
”I feel like a lot of people, treat sustainability like it’s a trend, but it’s only going to become more regulated and receive more demand from audiences.”
Sustainability is going to become a more central part of doing business across the board, and Jules predicts that it could even become detrimental to your revenue to leave it out of the planning stage: “I feel like a lot of people treat sustainability like it’s a trend, but it’s only going to become more regulated and receive more demand from audiences. While people are still getting away with treating it as a ‘nice to have’ that falls by the wayside when budgets and timelines shrink, as the weather gets worse, and as people become more aware of the issue, they will start to become more particular about where their money goes.”