What advice can you share with those just beginning their journey? 1 It takes bold decisions to change mindsets ‐ and there will always be naysayers. This is why it’s so critical to be honest about both your achievements and your challenges on your sustainability journey, and the measures you put in place to address those challenges. 2 Being more sustainable won’t necessarily cost you more money – deciding to go paper‐ ormerchandise‐free, or reducing business travel, can actually cut costs. 3 Do your due diligence on your eco‐friendly vendors: to avoid falling victim to greenwashingpractices, make sure you find out more about your potential vendors’ supply chain. 4 Always strive to improve, and measure your progress along the way: it’s critical to collect accurate data pre‐ and post‐ the sustainability initiatives you have implemented, which can then inform the benchmarks and performance indicators you set for the following year. 5 Savour your journey (and not just KPIs): sustainability is a journey andcan never be considered something we are able to fully accomplish. I think it’s tricky to ever claim that we are carbon‐neutral, zero waste or completely green, but we owe it to our planet to do what’s within our means to make them more sustainable.
• Empowering individuals within and outside of our company who might not otherwise had the chance to become confident public speakers. When is offsetting the solution? You can’t make up for contributing to deforestation through the products you purchase for your event by investing in tree planting projects in a different part of the world. Event organisers should always prioritise efforts to ‘reduce, reuse and recycle’ before they consider resorting to offsetting. Carbon offsetting should only be used as a last resort to account for sources of emissions you are unable to control, including energy consumption at venues where you have no influence over where the electricity is sourced from or the transport of goods that you can’t procure locally. An overt focus on carbon offsetting without any fundamental changes to the way your events arerun could actually backfire and may put your organisation at (the reputational) risk of greenwashing. Sustainability professionals often suffer from eco‐ anxiety - a mindset of never having done enough to reverse our climate crisis. We often forget to appreciate that every single green step counts in the path to become more sustainable.
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