Setting the Stage for Sustainability: How Event Concept is Decarbonising the Event Industry
With three decades of knowledge and expertise, Event Concept (EC) is trusted by some of the world’s most high-profile brands and venues to design and deliver extraordinary events without fail. EC is a creative event agency and production company, seamlessly blending agency thinking and production company doing to deliver extraordinary events and everlasting experiences.
Now, EC is three years into its Net Zero journey and Positive Planet recently sat down with Adam Wright, Operations Director, to understand exactly how collaboration has helped the company take its sustainability goals to the next level.
The Challenge
Sustainability has been a passion of EC founders for many years, and before engaging in external support, the team already fully understood the environmental impacts one-off events have on the industry and further afield. However, they needed specific expertise to gain a comprehensive understanding of their climate-related impact and to progress effectively on their sustainability journey.
Additionally, accelerated by the pandemic, the shift in attitudes towards more sustainable events from clients encouraged EC to bring sustainability to the forefront of its business activities. Not only were EC’s clients keen for change, but employee mindsets were changing too. Senior leaders were ready to make EC a responsible workplace to build momentum with carbon reduction efforts and optimise company-wide productivity.
The Positive Planet Solution
EC recognised the need for a sustainability partner, and after reviewing multiple providers, felt Positive Planet’s values, passion, and commitment to building better businesses were the drivers for accessing support. The collaboration aimed to support the company to take credible action towards its carbon reduction plans as part of its wider sustainability goals.
Being able to measure its carbon footprint enabled EC to gain a holistic understanding of its emissions impact. From this, the company were able to work with Positive Planet consultants to develop a stringent carbon reduction plan, targeting year-on-year emission reductions as a central pillar of their environmental pledge.
With a team full of passionate people eager to drive the business’s sustainability journey forward, Carbon Literacy training (CLT) was an easy choice for the business. Adam even took his learning one step further by undertaking Positive Planet’s Train the Trainer course and is now equipped to develop industry-specific CLT courses to deliver to clients and the wider internal team. The company has also used its commitment to continuous education to achieve Carbon Literate Bronze Organisation status, an award that perfectly reflects the direction EC is going in with its sustainability activities.
“It has been a pleasure to work with Positive Planet over the years. They mirror our company values and have supported us in developing a strong proposition for carbon emissions measurement and reduction.
Positive Planet has been instrumental in helping us to roll out Carbon Literacy training to our team, and we are proud to have been awarded the Carbon Literate Organisation Bronze award. This recognition reflects our ongoing commitment to sustainability, and we are excited to continue building on this achievement.”
Harriet Palmer, Sustainability Lead at Event Concept
The Benefits
EC has showcased its industry leadership by collaborating with Positive Planet to confidently launch its impact report, making it the first among its peers and competitors to be published. The company has been able to use this as an effective sales tool when speaking to potential clients, illustrating EC’s positive attitude to being a sustainable business and attracting fellow businesses that mirror its values and commitments.
There’s also now an urgency and empowerment within the internal team to act on their CLT learnings to create a wider positive impact within the business, from event design to waste management. This newfound motivation by employees to reduce emissions individually will support EC’s overall carbon reduction goals and be critical to delivering their ambitious targets.
Next Steps
EC continue to look inward at actions it can take to pursue its carbon reduction goals. Several targets have already been set, including replacing all light goods vehicles (LGV) with an electric fleet and increasing company recycling to 90% by the end of 2024. To add to this, initial conversations have already begun around the possibilities of achieving Positive Planet Certified, an exciting new accreditation for responsible brands, and EC will consider its options over the coming weeks and months. Other carbon reduction initiatives set out by the business include:
- Continuing to educate the team on climate-related issues through training and focusing on team members who have the greatest impact and the ability to design sustainably from the start of their events.
- Offering Green Team Committee Members additional paid time to ensure they can focus on sustainability initiatives.
- Reducing staff travel via Uber around London by 20%.
- Reducing print usage across the business.
- Engaging with suppliers to partner on the journey.
Going forward, the overriding goal for EC is to achieve Net Zero by 2050 in line with the Science-based Targets initiative’s (SBTi) and UK Government recommendations. The company will maintain a heightened focus on year-on-year emissions reductions as it continues to grow with support from the Positive Planet consultancy team.
