Joe Gilliver, founder and executive producer at The Chameleon Agency, shares his practical tips for running engaging events that don’t damage the environment.

In-person events are firmly back on the agenda. Fatigued from years of virtual-only meetings, many of us now have a strong desire for genuine face-to-face connection. If done successfully, in-person events and experiences can be a critical mechanism for increasing connection and engagement, as well as reaffirming and embedding an organisation’s purpose, vision and values.

Yet, if not planned with sustainability front-of-mind, events can contribute negatively to our environment and consequently, to an organisation’s CSR goals. Research from MeetGreen shows that on average, a three-day, in-person event with 1000 people produces 530 metric tons of carbon dioxide. That’s equivalent to the annual emissions of approximately 115 petrol cars. So how can comms teams bring people together without blowing their sustainability goals out the window? It’s all in the planning.

There’s a misconception that sustainable = more expensive, yet if sustainability is considered from the outset, rather than being an afterthought, this often isn’t the case. Time is a blessing when it comes to sustainability - organisations need the luxury of time to be able to make truly sustainable decisions.

A good place to start is with the venue. Ask them what type of power they use, what tariff they are on, how they measure energy usage and whether they can provide usage data for the actual event so that it can be offset. Also, do they use energy-efficient lighting and screens? What suppliers do they use for everything from catering to signage? Ask them directly for their sustainability credentials. Most should be able to give you Scope 1 and 2 data, but increasingly venues - particularly bigger ones - are measuring Scope 3 (indirect emissions from their supply chain) too. The more data you have at your disposal, the better.

Also, consider how far the venue is from a) the main bulk of the crew that will be servicing it and the attendees that will be coming and b) public transport links. Crew and attendee travel can make up a large percentage of an event’s total emissions and is something that’s often overlooked. Educating people on the impact of travelling to the venue by car vs. public transport can also support people in making planet-friendly choices.

When it comes to catering, choose suppliers that measure the carbon impact of their food and drink. Think about three things – food choices, food waste and food provenance. The first step to offsetting your carbon is to use local produce where possible and design your menus to be seasonal. For example, using root vegetables and gourds during the autumn, and berries in the spring and summer, reduces the impact of importing produce from abroad.

Centrepieces and paper communications can be another massive source of waste. Consider alternative resources where possible. Small swaps such as writing name settings and descriptor cards on seed paper, which can be taken away and planted after the event, are a really easy way to embed more sustainable practices. Seed paper looks beautiful and unique, too. You might even decide to go completely paperless.

While centrepieces make venues look great, they often end up in the bin. To get around this, we’ve recently used plants in biodegradable pots as centrepieces, rather than cut flowers that would likely go straight in the bin. We’ve then invited attendees to take a pot home, and those that are left, we’ve donated to local gardens.

Ultimately, creating sustainable events comes down to thinking circular first. Think about everything you’re going to use and consider whether you need it in the first place, and if so, can it be reused, recycled and fed back into the circular economy? This is where having good partners working towards a common goal can help. We work with Event Cycle, a fantastic organisation that takes materials that are left over after events and gives them a second life with charities, community groups, schools and social enterprises.

Of course, there’s little point in doing all this good work if you’re not measuring it. Sustainability metrics should be agreed at the start, with goals and figures for what good looks like clearly outlined. Travel, waste and energy typically make up the bulk of an event’s environmental footprint, so this is a sensible place to start. Send out a survey asking attendees where they are travelling from and how they will get to the event - a really simple way of measuring travel emissions. Work with the venue to measure how much energy the event used, and if they can’t do this, you can approximate based on duration, energy sources and occupancy. Set targets for waste management – work with the venue to total how much waste the event will generate and have a set plan for what will be recycled and reused.

When all is said and done, approaching events with a sustainability-first mindset makes complete sense and is the right thing to do. But in today’s world of squeezed budgets and resources, there are benefits above and beyond the moral and ethical. Ultimately, with increasing focus and scrutiny on CSR and sustainability, companies are buying themselves compliance and competitive advantage when they embed sustainability into their day-to-day. Add to this, with employees increasingly expecting their employers to act responsibly, thinking and acting sustainably gives internal communications teams a real opportunity to build colleague trust, connection and engagement.