About Us
As of February 2025, Positive Impact has a community of almost 2,000 global event professionals, over 40 corporate Head of Events, over 40 Corporate Head of Sustainability, over 160 SMEs with a Race to Zero commitment, over 5 memorandums of understanding with United Nations bodies.
For almost 20 years not for profit Positive Impact have been providing engagement, collaboration and education to create a sustainable event industry. You could describe Positive Impact as the ‘critical friend’ of the global event sector.
In 2023 we began to focus on bringing needed innovation to life by supporting two projects:
Technology to make it easier for your event to have a positive Impact
Positive Impact is the only event sector body to be a Race to Zero Accelerator, UN SDG Action mobiliser and to have education certified by the world’s largest and leading CPD accreditation working across all sectors, so our education is accessed by heads of marketing, HR and sustainability.
Our funding comes from everywhere and nowhere, and every penny, cent or yen is used to advance the event sector so every time an event happens the UN Sustainable Development Goals are advanced and events are recognised as ensuring 'participation and inclusion in decision making’ (UN SDG16).
This is a timeline of Positive Impact's journey and the creation of a sustainable event industry. It reflects initiatives from:
The United Nations
Positive Impact
CEO Fiona Pelham
Key developments in the creation of a sustainable event industry.
Empowering 100,000 #eventprofs to be in action building the future of how human connection happens
On 14th April 2020, we joined our ambassadors in launching our grassroots campaign to empower 100,000 #eventprofs to be in action building the future of how human connection happens. This summary report explores the results of this campaign.
Sharing examples of how events can be used to achieve the UN SDGs for #EarthDay 2020
The Positive Impact Events team and the global #eventprofs community shared examples of how events can be used to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Exploring the future of the global meetings and events industry for GMID 2020
Positive Impact celebrated Global Meetings Industry Day by hosting a webinar with a panel of industry leaders including Cvent, Northstar Meetings Group and UNFCCC on the future of the global meetings and events industry. This webinar discussed how the events industry can help achieve the UN SDGs and our 2020 100,000 campaign to empower and upskill 100,000 event professionals to build the future of how human connection happens.
Celebrating International Women’s Day 2020 with our Girls Creating campaign
In 2020, Positive Impact celebrated International Women’s Day with our annual Girls Creating Campaign. Positive Impact facilitated a webinar, interviewed leading female CEOs and encouraged people to share stories of women in their lives who have inspired them.
Creating a sustainable event industry since 2005
Positive Impact has worked to create a sustainable event industry since 2005. We have set up an archive so we can keep a record of all the resources we have created since our creation. Although some of these resources may no longer be relevant, this archive documents our journey and successes in achieving our vision of a sustainable event industry.
Growing our ambassador community in 2019
In 2019 our ambassadors grew to 403 ambassadors. We provided our ambassadors with monthly challenges to be in action on progressing the UN SDGs. We also sent our ambassadors a powerpoint to inform their communities about how completing the event industry MyWorld survey will tell the story of the power of events and create a sustainable event industry.
Accelerating towards the SDGs by using events
Positive Impact submitted an acceleration action to the United Nations SDG Summit explaining the role of the event industry in achieving the SDGs.
Creating resources with Unicef UK for the consideration of Human and Child Rights and Safeguarding
In 2019, Positive Impact Events began a collaboration with Unicef UK to produce resources to support an event to be planned with the consideration of Human Rights and Child Rights. This guidance is a consultation draft that will be able to be used as part of an event organiser’s implementation of ISO 20121.
Encouraging the event sector to take part in UN SDG Action
In 2019 Positive Impact began submitting Acceleration Action plans to UN SDG Action campaign. Find out how they encouraged the event sector to take part and support this initiative.
UN Survey tailored and launched for event industry
Positive Impact Events collaborated with UN SDG Action to tailor the SDG survey to meet the needs of event professionals. Over 7000 commitments from event professionals in 58 countries were gathered in one month and this was the first time the UN My World Survey was tailored for an industry.
Facilitating a sustainability policy roundtable with destinations and policymakers
Positive Impact facilitated a policy roundtable at IMEX Frankfurt to explore with destinations and policymakers what needs to happen so policy enables sustainable action at events.
Exploring the importance of measurement with the UN
UN representatives from UN SDG Action Campaign and MYWorld and the International Air Transport Association (IATA) were invited to IMEX Frankfurt to discuss the importance of measurement. These representatives participated in a successful presentation to a standing room only audience of over 200. They also joined a roundtable with industry leaders to support industry actions on measurement.
Presenting at the UN SDG Global Festival of Action on how events are a route to achieving the SDGs
Positive Impact’s CEO, Fiona Pelham, hosted a presentation at the 2019 SDG Global Festival of Action sharing stories of how events are used to change the world. These stories also shared actions people could take so they left the room inspired and ready to take action.
Celebrating Earth Day with #CSRshareDay
Positive Impact Events curated a 24 hour collaboration by event professionals around the world to share best practice examples of sustainable events on social media.
Researching the top 10 ways to reduce your event's carbon footprint
Positive Impact worked with Project Drawdown to research the 10 best ways to reduce the carbon footprint of your event to help achieve our vision of a sustainable events industry.
Hearing from school strikers for Global Meetings Industry Day
This year Positive Impact celebrated Global Meetings Industry Day by hosting a webinar with a number of children in England, Scotland and Hong Kong who took part in the school strikes for climate. We also asked industry leaders to ‘Pledge for Change’ to be a part of the solution, not the problem. Almost 40 industry leaders signed this pledge.
Asking businesses to be part of creating a sustainable event industry
In 2019, Positive Impact created a microsite which set out the ways that companies could get involved with the creation of a sustainable event sector.
Celebrating International Women’s Day 2019 with our Girls Creating campaign
In 2019, Positive Impact celebrated International Women’s Day with our annual Girls Creating Campaign. Positive Impact held a webinar and created an interview series with leading women in the event industry.
Growing our ambassador community in 2018
In 2018 our ambassadors grew to 267 ambassadors. We provided our ambassadors with 3 powerpoints to engage their communities on the UN SDGs. August’s theme was on SDG 13, 10 AND 11. We also sent our ambassadors monthly challenges related to a UN SDG. You can see June’s challenge here.
Collaborating with Finland’s largest convention centre to implement ISO 20121
Positive Impact worked with Messukeskus to support their implementation of ISO 20121.
