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On March 23rd, The Future Economy Network (FEN) hosted a evening session entitled “Sustainability in the Events Industry” which was attended by a large range of delegates. Before the event began, the attendees enjoyed some pre-sessional networking in small breakout rooms facilitated by the FEN team.
Katherine Piper, Director of the Future Economy Network, welcomed attendees to the event and highlighted the benefits of joining the network. Katherine also shared updates about the Carbon Neutral Hub in Bristol, Future Leap as well as briefly running through plans for the Festival of Sustainable Business, in light of new Government guidance towards the COVID-19 pandemic.
Katherine opened the event acknowledging how the event sector has been especially impacted by the COVID pandemic and celebrating the planned lifting of restrictions. In recovery, there is a great opportunity to progress sustainability! Speakers included:
· Coral Ruz Founder and CEO of Zero Waste Berlin Festival
· Lisa Sweeting Founder of Green Sense Events
· Katherine Piper Future Economy Network’s Director
· Franco de la Croix-Vaubois Virtual Event Specialist on Hopin and Founder of Event Organisers Network (EON)
The speakers delivered fantastic insights and inspiration into how the industry can reduce waste, incorporate sustainability into supply chains, learn from the rise of online events and much more.
Coral Ruz Founder and CEO of Zero Waste Berlin Festival
The Zero Waste Festival Berlin not only focuses on zero waste but incorporating sustainability and circularity. The festival is planned for the 19th-20th of June this year in Berlin and brings together citizens, impact entrepreneurs and sustainability enthusiasts. Coral shared the steps the festival has taken to incorporate sustainability throughout the planning process; including measuring and tracking progress, committing to sustainability goals and sharing knowledge within teams.
Lisa Sweeting Founder of Green Sense Events
Lisa’s presentation focused on the importance of choosing sustainable suppliers who share your values, giving advice on how to find and work with sustainable suppliers. Lisa provided useful directories of sustainable suppliers such as FEN, the Green Supplier Directory and Little Green Book Events. She offered some interesting aspects to consider when deciding on procurement requirements such as checking for sustainability polices and if suppliers can offer a post event report.
Katherine Piper Future Economy Network’s Director
Katherine shared the experience of FEN being committed to ‘walking the talk’ and how they have applied this to their events, offering lots of accessible starting points to improve sustainability in all types of events. Some points included: choosing venues with a commitment to sustainability, considering active travel options, and the use of opt-out options to encourage sustainable choices. The importance of inclusive and accessible events was discussed, especially how online and hybrid events can reach further across borders and increase accessibility. Katherine offered a great insight into working together with carbon offsetting partners at events , and highlighted FENs relationship with the Converging World.
Franco de la Croix-Vaubois Virtual Event Specialist on Hopin and Founder of Event Organisers Network (EON)
Franco gave interesting insights into how he has ‘embraced his digital discomfort’ and gave his experience hosting online events over the last year using the platform Hopin. He encouraged everybody to look into online events as there is a lot of support and forgiveness while the practice is still new. The environmental impacts of virtual, physical and hybrid events were covered, sparking an interesting discussion in the Q&A over delegate carbon footprints. Beginning with digital discomfort, Franco now considers online and hybrid events as the future, quoting Seneca “luck is what happens when opportunity and preparation meet”… although he does miss the canapes!
60 Second Pitches
Throughout, the audience were encouraged to ask questions which stimulated widespread debate, especially around sustainable venues and the future of online/hybrid events. Multiple attendees made use of the 60 second pitch opportunity, including Garrett Creative, Legacy, Seaweed Surf Shack, Earthrhize and Eco Disco. Thank you to all of the speakers and attendees, which without our events calendar would not be possible.
Close
Katherine closed the event with a lovely quote;
“Citizens of the world, but more especially in the global west, significantly underestimate the rate of change which is coming in the environment that will, in a matter of decades, affect everyone’s lives and livelihoods. Climate change is unlike any other challenge we have faced as humans. I find this, therefore, the most exciting opportunity that confronts me, whilst also being humble about both my ability to make change and the grand challenge at hand”
The Future We Choose by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett Carnac.
Event notes by Kelly-ann Luckhurst, MSc Environmental Consultancy, University of the West of England.
