I was in Glasgow at COP26 at the launch of the Net Zero Carbon Events pledge. ey announced the commitment to achieve net zero by 2050 and I thought, I’ve got to say something. So I asked, why is it going to take so long? Surely we can do things faster than that? e reply was that whereas some countries are advanced, there are other countries that haven’t even got going. But I still feel that 2050 is a long way o and if there was enough passion across the globe, our industry could change things. We’re used to doing the impossible. So why can’t we make this happen? I just don’t see what the problem is. At DRPG, we’ve committed to achieve net zero by 2025. We’ve been working on this journey for 15 years working with SamWilson of Syntiro. We’ve done a tremendous amount around waste to land ll and power. Our building is powered by solar panels. We achieved internal zero waste to land ll last year. Looking at materials, we are repurposing and reusing rather than just recycling. Single-use plastics do not cross the threshold. We respectfully ask our clients not to turn up with a bottle of water. Two years ago, I wouldn’t even have attempted to do it. Now clients actually say sorry, they’re apologetic. Currently we’re looking at wood. It gets to a point where stage sets or exhibition stands can’t be reused anymore, and it gets broken down. So we’re looking at whether it
and they say it’s too expensive. ere is no choice anymore. So now we ask, what are the opportunities for making this event more sustainable? No business is 100 per cent focused on sustainability. If clients aren’t necessarily thinking about sustainability in the right way, particularly around events, I see it as our role then to educate them and change their mindset. ere’s a triple bottom line of people, planet and pro t. It’s like a milking stool. It’s got three legs, and if one of those legs is a little bit rickety, then it won’t stand up straight. If one of those legs doesn’t exist, it will fall over. If we’re not making a pro t, we’re not going to be able to look a er people or the planet. But similarly, if we don’t look a er people, we’re not going to get the pro t. e biggest challenge in getting to net
Dale Parmenter, CEO of DRPG
our teams to think creatively. Litter bins outside exhibition halls are always full of carrier bags. Why aren’t we using more sustainably sourced, more socially driven giveaways? If you want to do giveaways then absolutely do it. But let’s look at di erent ways of doing that. Sustainability has gone from tree hugging to hard facts and data. Once it was all airy fairy and a bit fuzzy, now it’s all about measurement. If a team has an idea to do something, that’s the rst thing we throw back at them - how do you measure it? We
can be shredded and used in our biomass boilers to heat the warehouse. We’re looking constantly at di erent ways. We’ve got 40 apple trees, we had our rst harvest last year and that fed into the canteen, where they made apple pies and people could grab apples. We have a sustainability day in January as a kicko to
It’s critical for agencies and clients towork together on this - we’ve got to pool our expertise
need to evidence everything that we do. Absolutely everything. Every single one of our
zero has got to be travel. e stu around waste or power consumption is pretty much solvable. But if we want to y 5,000 people into London, that’s going to be an issue. Hybrid is a way of mitigating some of that and we have certainly got clients going that way. But there will still be a need to get people together. We really need to be talking to airlines. Obviously, the airlines are working towards lower impact solutions. I hope we’re going to start to see alternative fuels. I think we’ve got to work with the aviation industry. How can we make this better? It annoys me that it’s going to take years to do it. Do it now immediately, no question, no discussion, just get on with it!
clients will have a sustainability policy. When I talk to clients, their sustainability department policy covers them for what they manufacture - it doesn’t cover them for running events. is is where agencies can step up and ll that gap. We see ourselves now as the consultant to the client, because they’re not going to get it internally. It’s critical for agencies and clients to work together on this. We’ve got to pool our expertise. Gone are the days where we ask clients if they want to do sustainability
the year. We challenge every team to come up with one objective for the year. It can be incredibly simple. e target for our tech team is to reduce ga er tape by 50 per cent. Do we really need to wrap up cables with ga er tape, can we use reusables? We ask
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