Outlining 10 essentials for corporate sustainable event strategies

This 1 hour webinar to celebrate World Environment Day delivered fast-paced content which outlined actions and resources for delivering a credible sustainable event strategy including:

• net zero carbon targets

• SDGs

• human and child rights

Date: Tuesday 7th June 2022
Time: 4pm BST

This top 10 was taken from Positive Impact's 24 hour Earth Day #investinourplanet event which included sessions with Unicef UK, The UNFCCC Race to Zero Accelerators, UN Global compact and more.

#onlyoneearth

Supporting events management students and graduates around the world

In response to growing awareness for credible sustainable action, the Event Grads Community and Positive Impact, have launched a pledge which will support events management students and graduates around the world to advance the creation of a sustainable event sector.

Investing in the planet on Earth Day through a sustainable event strategy

This Earth Day, Positive Impact ran a 24 hour global initiative exploring how to invest in the planet and advance corporate sustainability goals through a sustainable event strategy.

This Earth Day event was designed to meet the needs of corporate event planners or corporate heads of sustainability. In this event, they were able to:

• Participate in workshops led by UN bodies, corporate peers and sustainability experts

• Learn how to implement global best practice frameworks (ISO 20121) and make recognised carbon commitments (UNFCCC Race to Zero)

• Gain knowledge on how to deliver a sustainable event strategy which aligns with your corporate sustainability goals

Who attended?

19 Global Corporate Heads of Sustainability or Events registered for Earth Day 2022; these corporates included:

• Deloitte

• Bloomberg

• Amex

• HP

• Bodyshop

• T-Mobile

• Reckitt

• Clarivate

• RSPB

• Interface

• SAP UK

• Pure storage

• Foresight Group LLP

• Shell

What was delivered?

Throughout the Earth Day event; attendees were given the opportunity to attend live panels, networking session and explorations into the future of human connection as well as given access the wider range of pre-recorded workshops and short clips that cover a wider range of sustainability topics which align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

Positive Impact delivered the following 5 live panels throughout the Earth Day event to support corporate event planners and heads of sustainability to advance their sustainability goals:

• Investing in a net zero carbon event future: update from Japan - with the Japan Climate Initiative and Cerespo, an event company who is leading in event sustainability in Japan.

• The Future of Events: Investing in a Net Zero Carbon Strategy for Your Event - With Climate Action for Associations, The Race to Zero Accelerator Programme, session facilitated by James Latham founder The Iceburg.

• The Future of Events: How Event Grads are Making a Commitment to Shape the Future of the Event Sector -with Event Grads, session facilitated by Martin Fullard Editorial Director at Mash Media

• The future of events: How you can use event strategy to advance corporate sustainability commitments and the UN SDGs - with UN Global Compact Network UK, Interface and RX.

• The Future of Measurement and Events- with Positive Impact’s Team

Exploring the role of gender equality in creating a net zero carbon future and what this means for your event strategy

To #breakthebias in line with International Women’s Day, corporate event planners were invited to an exclusive salon* on 22nd March 2022, exploring the role of gender equality in supporting their event strategy to advance sustainability commitment and the UN SDGs.

The salon was delivered in collaboration with the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat.

This animated video outlines the importance of UN SDG 5 for sustainable event strategy.

*A salon is a creative, open, honest, confidential conversation. In other words, an excuse to be curious and contribute to the creation of a sustainable event sector.

Breaking the bias on International Women’s Day

The global event sector is a majority female employee sector, yet this year’s International Women’s Day theme of #breakthebias is still one which we have to tackle, as our CEO discoved.

To celebrate International Womens Day 2022 and to empower you to use your voice to #breakthebias in the event sector, Positive Impact created a basic toolkit.

Corporate event planners were also invited to join Positive Impact and the UN Climate Change Secretariat to explore the role of gender equality in creating a net zero carbon future, and what this could mean for their event strategy.

Breaking the bias will advance the UN Sustainable Development Goal 5 Gender Equality and if you are inspired to learn and take further action on how events can be used to advance the UN Sustainable Development Goals, join our global Positive Impact Ambassador community.

Being recognised as UNFCCC Race to Zero Accelerator

Nigel Topping, UN Level Climate Champion for COP26, welcomed Positive Impact as one of 13 recognized accelerator programmes to support action on net zero goals.

Imagining what 2022 could look like for the global event sector

Every year the Positive Impact team look to predict what the year ahead could look like for the global event sector. This audio covers our thoughts on what could happen in 2022.

Making a difference in the world

Read our Participate campaign report to understand the difference that Positive Impact made in 2021.

Enabling conversations to support companies to create a sustainable event strategy

The 2021 Corporate Salon Series provided an opportunity for unanswerable questions to be explored - a vital resource during a period of reinvention for the global event sector.

Positive Impact ran these monthly open and confidential conversations for corporate event and sustainability to:

• Explore different areas of sustainability for your corporate event strategy, each aligned with UN approaches.

• Understand the current gaps for events to advance corporate sustainability commitments.

• Demonstrate leadership by collaborating with Positive Impact to take action on your corporate event strategy.

Communicating our engagement with UN Global Compact key principles

In December 2021, Positive Impact completed our first Communication on Engagement for the UN Global Compact to outline our actions to advance the UN Global Compact key principles: Human rights, Labour, Environment and anti-corruption.

Please see the report presented on the UN Global Compact website to understand Positive Impact’s actions in 2021 to advance the key principles of UN Global Compact and engage the even sector on the UN SDGs:

Supporting the event sector to join the UNFCCC Race to Zero at COP26

Since 2018, in collaboration with UNFCCC Secretariat (the UN body responsible for climate change) Positive Impact have encouraged the event sector to take action and show leadership regarding their carbon emissions. Discover how we have supported the sector to have a net zero carbon commitment and join The Race to Zero.

Exploring how visit Britain could make a net zero commitment and join the UNFCCC Race to Zero

On 9th November 2021, Positive Impact and VisitBritain held a webinar to explore the strategic importance of events, what the UN Race to Zero is and practical steps on how to make a net zero commitment via Positive Impact’s UN campaign ‘Road to COP26: Event Sector Transformation’.

If you are an event sector SME and would like to make a net zero commitment, you can sign up to the Race to Zero below:

You can watch the webinar here:

Road to COP26: Event Sector Transformation toolkit

Positive Impact also encouraged SMEs who made a net zero commitment via Positive Impact’s campaign to use a toolkit to communicate their commitment on social media.

Anyone who was not an SME was asked to use the toolkit to encourage their supply chain to make a net zero commitment via Positive Impact’s campaign.

Engaging with UN Global Compact on the role of events in achieving net zero commitments

In collaboration with:

On 20th October, Positive Impact and UN Global Compact Network UK carried out a corporate only roundtable to explore the role of events in achieving net zero commitments.

• For Corporate heads of sustainability, this was an opportunity to explore a new angle for achieving the wider companies net zero commitments and an innovative approach for addressing scope 3 emissions.

• For Corporate event planners, this was an opportunity to explore ways to reach net zero carbon events and support how your business connects in a low carbon way with employees, suppliers, and customers.

You can watch the recording from the event here:

Anyone who was part of a corporate event or sustainability team was invited to join future corporate roundtables with Positive Impact in 2021, exploring how they could use their event strategy to advance their sustainability commitments and the UN Sustainable Development Goals. The roundtables explored the topic of net zero events and many more.

Invitees were also provided with a toolkit for communicating with their supply chain through Positive Impact’s ‘Road to COP26: Event Sector Transformation’ initiative, which was set up to support the event supply chain to make a net zero commitment with the Race to Zero.

Leading a virtual event for the Embassy in Hungary to support the Hungarian event sector

On the 8th October 2021, Positive Impact hosted a virtual event with the British Embassy in Hungary to support the Hungarian event sector to follow the leadership of the UK government and start making and understanding net zero carbon commitments.

In this webinar, we explored the potential future for the event sector if action is taken before COP26 by:

• Making a net zero commitment aligned with the UN Race to Zero

• Understanding and implementing ISO 20121, the only global standard for sustainable events

• Using the guidelines for planning an event with the consideration of human and child rights, which was created by Positive Impact and Unicef UK.

Positive Impact also provided resources to help the Hungarian event sector start taking action and transform to be sustainable.

This virtual event has provided a blueprint for all UKTIs to support their event sector and demonstrate the UK government’s leadership.

Exploring the role of human and child rights in event planning and strategy

Positive Impact and corporate event planners explored the role of human and child rights in event planning and strategy to advance SDG 16: peace, justice and strong institutions.

Aligned with the 2021 theme of the UN International Day of Peace, a select community of global corporate event planners joined an experiment to explore the role of human interaction in progressing SDG 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions.

On Tuesday 21st September (International Day of Peace), over 24 hours, they took part in facilitated networking, experiments, roundtables with UN bodies and engaged with over 20 hours of content. This included reports on previous human interaction experiments.

There was a £150 (approx $210 or €170) overhead per person that we could not avoid. Therefore in addition to the requirement to be a corporate event planner to attend this event there was a minimal administration fee.

What was included?

A roundtable with a Unicef UK to explore the role of human and child rights in event planning and strategy, and three experiments to explore how events can enable inclusion and participation through consideration of human and child rights.

These experiments were:

• An experiment into the accessibility challenges and how event planners might address them.

• An Academic experiment into inclusion and participation using the hat theory.

• An experiment exploring stakeholder engagement for planning an event with the consideration of human and child rights.

Explore was an impactful event series. Don’t take our word for it, hear from previous attendees:

“At Explore, I learnt new and innovative ways of transforming myself and my organisation to connect, alongside providing input into these explorations too. I think being innovative and explorative is important to keep up with the digital pace of the event industry that is highly affected by the Covid 19 situation”

— Elena Staszak, Partner Communication & Event Lead, Microsoft

FAQ

The following FAQ was included on the event registration page:

What is the agenda? 

The agenda will continue to be updated until the day before the event and will be found in the LinkedIn private group that will be launched before 21st September. You can understand more about the content of the day above. To understand what the Explore #5 agenda will be like, view the Explore #2 agenda. The Explore #5 agenda structure will be similar to this.

Why am I paying £150? 

Positive Impact is a not for profit, this means every penny spent with us is used to make a difference. Following each Explore, a report is created and shared with the wider industry. To understand the exact breakdown of how your registration fee will be spent, watch Bec’s experiment in transparency from Explore #1. 

Will this help me progress my career? 

Yes. Both the content created and how this content is delivered is done with the intention of empowering and enabling you to have a strategic conversation with your CEO so you can demonstrate the value of your role in terms they will understand.

Collaborating with #Act4SDGs

The Global Week To #Act4SDGs has taken place annually since 2016 With the intention of inspiring action to advance the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are 17 goals which will create a world that works for everyone.

You can learn more about what the SDGs mean for events from a campaign Positive Impact delivered in 2020 to engage 100,000 event professionals in building the future of human connection in line with the SDGs.

You can read more about how the event sector is accelerating progress towards the SDGs with the latest acceleration action report submitted to SDG Action for the event sector.

This year the Global Week to #Act4SDGs has a goal to inspire 100 million people to take individual and collective action with the overall target of mobilizing 1 billion actions by 2030. held during the high level week of the United Nations General Assembly this year’s mobilisation will also drive action in the lead up to COP26 in Glasgow. Positive Impact has submitted actions which will be led by the community of over 1600 global ambassadors and which are accessible to event professionals around the world.

Engaging the Global Event Sector in the UN SDGs with Acceleration Action 2021

Engage the global event sector so that by 2030 events are enabling inclusion and participation in decision making and accelerating progress towards the UN SDGs.

In 2019 the United Nations asked for commitments to action to accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals.

This was an opportunity to demonstrate the role of events in achieving the SDGs.

In September 2021, Positive Impact uploaded an Acceleration Action report to the UN Sustainable Development Goals platform. This provides an overview of actions taken in 2020-2021 and our commitment to action for 2021-2022. You can also download the report as a PDF below.

Positive Impact also joined the SDG Youth Summit and #Act4SDG campaign.

Gathering support for a climate action framework

This report is a review of the roundtables Positive Impact have run with UNFCCC on the climate action framework, gathering support for the sustainability initiative from across the value chain of the event sector as well as the UK government and COP26.

Celebrating Earth Day 2021: Report

SUMMARY REPORT

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This report provides a summary of Positive Impact’s Earth Day 2021 celebrations and the many opportunities to participate throughout the day in advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

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Introduction

Earth Day is held annually on the 22nd of April in order to demonstrate global support for environmental protection. In recent years, Earth Day has become an opportunity to come together to tackle climate change, through sharing initiatives and ways to take action.

This Earth Day marked a historic moment for climate action, as President Joe Biden invited 40 world leaders to the Global Leaders’ Summit on Climate. During the summit, Biden unveiled an ambitious pledge to cut US carbon emissions in half by 2030.

WHAT WAS POSITIVE IMPACT'S APPROACH ?

As Biden stated, we are in a “decisive decade” to fix global warming. Time is running out to respond to the climate challenge. At current, there is a gap in the credibility of the event sector's communications because we do not have a science-based carbon target. Therefore, Positive Impact used Earth Day 2021 as an opportunity to close this gap and align the event sector with the many government and company announcements made that day.

Our focus was to raise £30,000 ($45,000/ €35,000) of funding to deliver stakeholder engagement so the event sector can create a Climate Action Framework, under the auspicies of UNFCCC Secretariat.

We created a number of opportunities for individuals, our ambassadors, companies and associations to participate in supporting the low-carbon future of the event sector and advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals:

• Joining our community of over 1,400 ambassadors.
• Hosting an hour of social media sharing examples of sustainability best practices.
• Joining a roundtable on Plastic & the Event Sector with UNEP
• ‘Pay as much as you can afford’ for a tweet celebrating your personal action to be sustainable.
• £800 ($1100/€930) for a company/ destination/ association tweet celebrating your personal action to be sustainable.
• £100 ($135/ €110) one-off payment for EDUCATE.

Each of the above is an opportunity for ACTION. Why? Because throughout Earth Day we communicated this message:

"The time for conversation and consideration is over. The time for target setting and budget allocating is now. How can you take action that will make a difference?"

20 Hosting Hours of Sharing Sustainability Best Practice

This Earth Day, the #eventprof community came together to tell the story of the power of events in achieving the UN SDGs. Over 20 hours, 14 hosts took to social media and reached an online community of 2 million using the hashtags #eventscreatchange and #earthday.

At the beginning and end of each hour, we encouraged hosts to share the importance of the event sector coming together to create a Climate Action Framework, under the auspices of UNFCCC Secretariat. Hosts shared a link to enable everyone to get involved.

> EXAMPLES

Download a booklet of the Earth Day best practice examples - this is a great resource if you are looking to take learnings from other event professionals on how to implement the SDGs at your events.

> THANK YOU TO ALL OF OUR HOSTS:

• Fiona Pelham - @FionaPelham
• Positive Impact - @Pievents
• Cerespo - @Pieventsjapan
• IMEX - @IMEX_Group
• Italian Special Occasions - @ISODMC
• Martiz Global Events - @AmyKramer
• Martiz Global Events - @RachaelMRiggs
• Streamline Events - @Streamlinevents
• Michele Fox - @Michelefoxnyc
• Emili Subtil - @Emili942
• Thrive Meetings - @tstuckrath
• The EAIE - @TheEAIE
• Messukesus - @BlomsterPaula
• Soundings Connect - @SoundingsTalent

Supporting the creation of a Climate Action Framework for the Event Sector

Events bring people together and enable human interaction. In a post COVID-19 world, there is the opportunity for a new narrative on the important role of events - Governments and businesses could recognise the global event sector as a strategic enabler for participation and inclusion in decision-making (advancing SDG 16). *

To make this new narrative a reality for years to come, we need to take action to create a carbon target and reduction framework so future generations can still attend events.

Positive Impact and UNFCCC (the UN Body for Climate Change) are ready to support stakeholder engagement across the global event sector so everyone’s voice can be heard and all our initiatives can be counted.

There is a small funding gap of £30,000 ($45,000/ €35,000) to be closed and so our approach on Earth Day was a grassroots campaign to close this gap.

> Throughout Earth Day we raised £585 towards our target. This included £385 of 'pay as you feel' donations and £200 from our EDUCATE product.

> We also created a £800 ($1100/€930) opportunity for companies/ associations/ destinations to fund the framework, however we received no purchases.

Who did we reach out to?

1. We empowered our ambassador community with a toolkit to ask companies marketing their sustainability initiatives for funding
2. We reached out directly to 47 associations with this letter.
3. We engaged with over 30 corporate companies across Linkedin and Twitter throughout Earth Day asking them to support the framework

Plastic and the Event Sector with UNEP

During Earth Day, Positive Impact hosted a roundtable with UNEP exploring best practices surrounding plastic reduction which are important to advance the Sustainable Development Goals.

UNEP explained their plastic initiative and Positive Impact provided attendees with resources on how to address the role of plastic at their event.

Click to download the full report.

A summary of Earth Day: An interview with our CEO, Fiona Pelham

Listen to an interview with Positive Impact's CEO Fiona Pelham in which she provides a summary of what Positive Impact achieved this Earth Day and why Earth Day is so important for the event sector to build its reputation.

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Earth Day 2021 is over, how can I still commit to taking action?

There are many opportunities available for you to contribute to the creation of a sustainable event industry all year round:

Exploring the connections between human interaction and restoring our Earth

Explore to Restore: Earth Day

Aligned with the theme of Earth Day 2021: Restore Our Earth, Positive Impact invited corporate event professionals to join their peers to explore the connections between human interaction and restoring our Earth.

On Thursday 22nd April (Earth Day) participants took part in facilitated networking, experiments, roundtables with UN bodies and engaged with on-demand recorded content.

Participants in Explore #4 will gain: 

The ability to talk to their CEOs in strategic and impactful terms.

New ideas of and experiences of practices which could be used at your face to face, virtual or hybrid events to champion gender equality and facilitate human interaction.

Understanding and experience of contributing to UN policies which will impact future strategy of global governments and business.

There is £250 (approx $340 or €290) overhead per person that we can not avoid. Therefore in addition to the requirement to be a corporate event planner to attend this event there is a minimal administration fee.

Save with an all access pass, just £400 for all Explore events in 2021 (normal price per event is £250).

View the agenda

Explore is an impactful event series

Don’t take our word for it, hear from previous attendees:

“At Explore, I learnt new and innovative ways of transforming myself and my organisation to connect, alongside providing input into these explorations too. I think being innovative and explorative is important to keep up with the digital pace of the event industry that is highly affected by the Covid 19 situation”

— Elena Staszak, Partner Communication & Event Lead, Microsoft

Your explorations can happen in 4 formats:

Networking - a chance to meet your fellow explorers and get to interact with them during facilitated networking.

Experiments - join a range of hosts who will be leading YOU through a series of 20-minute experiments exploring the power of female leadership and human interaction.

Roundtables - contribute your ideas to frameworks, policies, white papers and other documents which will be used by United Nations bodies and corporate sustainability leaders. These sessions will be facilitated by high level partners so YOUR voice will be heard.

On Demand - for the times in the 24 hours when you are not networking, exploring or contributing you have the chance to access learning materials which will translate the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals into practical guidance for event professionals.

Before 22nd April, you will be given access to a private LinkedIn group which will guide you through the day’s experiments.

FAQ

What is the agenda? 

The agenda will continue to be updated until the day before the event and will be found in the LinkedIn private group that will be launched before 22nd April. You can understand more about the content of the day above. To understand what the Explore #4 agenda will be like, view the Explore #2 agenda. The Explore #4 agenda structure will be similar to this.

Why am I paying £250? 

Positive Impact is a not for profit, this means every penny spent with us is used to make a difference. Following each Explore, a report is created and shared with the wider industry. To understand the exact breakdown of how your registration fee will be spent, watch Bec’s experiment in transparency from Explore #1. 

Will this help me progress my career? 

Yes. Both the content created and how this content is delivered is done with the intention of empowering and enabling you to have a strategic conversation with your CEO so you can demonstrate the value of your role in terms they will understand.