Purpose
The purpose of this Environmental Sustainability Policy is to outline our commitment to reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions (hereafter referred to as GHGs, emissions or CO2e) and reducing our waste footprint, within our organisation, and in the events we deliver. We will communicate this policy to all our stakeholders, including clients, suppliers and staff. We will do this to enable them to work with us in achieving our ambitions in this important area. We recognise that the environmental impacts from our operations and events mostly derive from emissions from fuel usage for travel, transport and energy, and waste from single-use items. We therefore hope to increase environmental awareness across our organisation with this policy and embed carbon reduction and zero-waste practices in our everyday business.
Statement of Intent
Net-Zero Goals
Our aim as a responsible business is to create a sustainable future, being aware and changing the impact of the events industry through our own footprint and the areas of influence we have in the events industry. We publicly support a 1.5 °C future and we are setting our climate mitigation targets in order to reach Net Zero Global emissions by 2050 at the latest across our company operations. We commit to assessing and reducing the emissions from our areas of impact and influence. We are addressing the areas of greatest need first. Such as single-use event items, unsustainable material usage, transportation and catering. We aim to reduce event emissions from activities we deliver and contract, in line with the 1.5°C pathway.
What is Net-Zero and the Circular Economy?
Net Zero
The term Net Zero is often interchanged with Carbon Neutrality, but there is a subtle difference.
Carbon Neutrality refers to carbon ‘offsetting’ or ‘balancing’ emissions resulting from an activity. This has the effect of, on paper, “neutralising” the emissions created.
Net Zero first reduces emissions from an activity as far as possible before carbon balancing. This means that emissions are first reduced and then offset. The ambition is to achieve a 1.5°C future.
In order to claim Net Zero emissions, emissions must first be reduced, in line with global targets, before being balanced. If carbon emissions are balanced before being reduced, these cannot be constituted as Net Zero. It is essential that the entire globe reaches Net Zero carbon emissions as soon as possible to limit the global temperature rises to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. A rise of just 2 degrees has catastrophic impacts for life on this planet, including humans, and may be irreversible. We are currently on trajectory for a 3-4 degree rise so actions must be taken quickly. The UK has now set in law to cut emissions by 78% by 2035, and to Net Zero by 2050. We wish to accelerate this transition in line with broader global ambitions to reach Net Zero as soon as possible.
The Circular Economy (CE)
The CE is a system aimed at eliminating waste and ensuring the continual use of resources. The practice prioritises redesigning products and processes to reduce and eliminate waste. This is followed by reuse and repurposing of existing products or assets, before looking at alternative ways of using or processing products – like refurbishing. This is the same approach as the Zero Waste Hierarchy which supports the Circular Economy. Recycling comes quite low in the Zero Waste Hierarchy due to the energy intensive processes required.
Our Commitments
We are committed to responsible environmental operations and event planning and as such commit to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and waste across both our operational activities and our event deliveries.
We commit to the following at a company and event level:
We pledge to the UNFCCC Race to Zero and halving our greenhouse gases before 2030 across all company owned operations. To do this we will set 2022 as our baseline year and set a year on year reduction target of 10%.
- Achieving Net Zero emissions in our company operations well before 2050 and as soon as possible.
- Disclosing our progress on a yearly basis.
- Reducing waste across all company owned operations with a view to operating as a Circular Economy business by 2030.
- Reducing carbon emissions across our event programme as far as possible and by at least 5% year on year.
- Achieving Net Zero events well before 2050 and as soon as possible.
- Reducing waste across all event deliveries with a view to operating Circular Events by 2035.
Achieving our aims
To achieve our aims, we will work to deliver our commitments by undertaking the following activities:
At a company level:
- We have implemented a flexi-work and work from home policy in order to reduce electricity and gas consumption in our offices and facilities
- We maintain a policy that all our staff attend client meetings, site visits and events via public transport to reduce emission contribution
- We have implemented a strict control of recycling and waste procedure at the office
We also recognise that as an events business, our biggest area of impact is in the events we deliver. We therefore commit to the following to support our commitments to a 1.5°C future:
- Reducing emissions associated with services we are contracted to deliver as far as possible, starting from the beginning of the project.
- Requesting evidence of energy reductions and / or efficiencies as well as evidence of commitments to reducing emissions as part of our venue and supplier procurement processes.
- Suppliers will be reviewed on both cost and environmental performance when making appointments.
- Ensuring all event associated Travel and Transport emissions resulting from staff travel and from services we have contracted are reduced as far as possible.
- Communicating to staff our ambitions to reduce emissions from travel and providing information on low-emitting modes of transport or organising group travel solutions wherever possible.
- Proposing 50% plant based menus as standard. We will collaborate with caterers before proposing menus to stakeholders / clients to ensure delivery against these aims.
- Reducing food surplus where possible through monitoring actual consumption at events.
- We commit to hiring as many assets as possible, such as furniture and decor, even when purchase may be cheaper, unless these items have a designated post-event life.
- Where hiring is not feasible, we will:
- Design assets with the Circular Economy in mind to reduce potential waste generation.
- Design items to be easily disassembled and separated for component recovery.
- Design items with the objectives of reducing the volume of waste created in the production stage.
- Increase our rosta of suppliers who offer a take-back recycling scheme.
- We commit to donating assets after the event to charities or community groups in the local area for reuse, ensuring it is of good quality and is of use to these groups.
- We will build a database of sustainable venues and suppliers, to support the growth of the sustainable events industry
- We attend regular Isla meetings to meet sustainable suppliers and discuss methods to build a net-zero industry
- We request sustainability practice documents from suppliers and review policies and select our event partners based on their good practice
Monitoring and Improvement
We will review this policy on an annual basis and update targets, objectives and information as appropriate.
Progress and Improvements
We are committed to analysing where targets have not been met to enable us to overcome these barriers more effectively in the future. Where targets have been met or exceeded we will celebrate this success and set higher targets for the following year, stretching our ambitions to deliver overall Net Zero.