change needed from government and businesses and individual around the world. The climate debate is a perfect illustration of the role events play in spreading knowledge, ideas, skills, and best practice across borders.” Simon Evans, director at EcoBooth, said: “We’re hugely in support of any initiatives like this for two key reasons: the critical and environmental need for it and the environmental benefits that
the logistics to make sure this incredibly important event on sustainability (COP 26) can take place, but the sector itself is not currently engaged in the solutions that are being discussed.” Miguel Naranjo, programme officer at UNFCCC, described how a carbon target and framework could be created for the events sector – and said COP26 was the incentive to ‘do it now’. He said, with Positive Impact acting as secretariat, an ‘ambitious timeline’ could see the framework being completed in four months and presented at COP26. Businesses in the sector would join the framework as ‘members’ and have ‘a voice and a vote’ in shaping it. Hesaid:“Itisvoluntaryandcollaborative – but it needs to be ambitious: net zero by 2050 is the basis. And it needs to be transparent, so everyone outside the sector can see what we are doing.” Theresa Villiers, chair of the UK’s All- Party Parliamentary Group for Events, said the ‘top priority’ was to find a way to get the sector – devastated by Covid-19 – open again, but that it was ‘striking’ that public interest in ‘environmental matters’ had been ‘undimmed’ by the pandemic. She said: “The events sector has a central role because international action on climate change and all environmental issues have been pushed forward by a series of major conferences, without these big, global gatherings, there would be no chance of driving the
A sector framework could galvanise that small momentum and turn it into somethingmuch more significant.
would come from it. And secondly, this is a global issue and any government or sector that acts on this now is going to be leading on it, so there is obviously a competitive advantage for the events sector in the UK getting this right. We’ve seen the events sector grappling with it over the years, but it’s not enough: it’s not quick enough and the UNFCCC sector framework could galvanise that small momentum and turn it into something much more significant.” Positive Impact Events said £30,000
was needed to carry out crucial market research
Visit www.positiveimpactevents.com for more information.
and a marketing campaign to maximise support across the sector for the initiative.
AMIMAGAZINE.GLOBAL APRIL 2021 17
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