moderators, this has been causing me a headache for some time as prior to lockdown, my associates and I would be on a plane most weeks during the conference season, heading to wherever our clients were hosting their events. In November 2019, I travelled 40,000 miles for four jobs. While to some, this was a kudos to the frequent yer status, this isn’t a sustainable policy and for many brands building their own policies, this would weigh heavy on their own targets. We are in the same boat/ plane as many ofyou reading this today. But small changes that we action today will a ect our tomorrow. Like any plan, our policy will continue to develop as we grow and understand the changed landscape of business events. In the meantime, here are three of our policy points that may be useful for you to consider with your stakeholders. Travel blending We will consider reducing the frequency of business travel by hosting multiple meetings and events where possible into one trip and managing time
better. An example of this is working together as an industry to understand what events are happening where and working collaboratively to use this as a viable option. I have two client events in the same country happening consecutively, so I am able to travel once to host both. Alternative to travel During the event design process we will work with our clients to consider replacing certain face‐to‐face content and using virtual worlds to support our clients sustainable travel policies. With the growth of the virtual and digital conference world, and the acceptance from participants of this as medium, an example of this is that we are working with clients to consider whether a speaker or indeed host, needs to travel to deliver their content to achieve eventobjectives. Our associates We plan to help advance SDG 5 to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls by o ering opportunities to join our associate team, and encourage girls to join our hosting, moderation and meeting design community and discover the rich opportunities this profession can o er. is also is being recognised more and more in terms of banning one gender panels and consideration of audiences and equality in content and participation. ese are just a few examples of making that change. Some will work, some will not. As event professionals, perfection is something we all strive for. But these changes will take time, some will fail and we will learn and become more innovative from these failures. Without action, we do ourselves a great disservice as we really are the conduits for change. So, like Michael Jackson or not, go and make that change today.
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