Let’s not beat around the bush: events have a serious impact on the environment. If you want to organise a congress or another kind of big meeting, you really need to take sustainability in account. The primary reason is of course to save the planet, but there are three other important motivations. In this blog, we tell you more about them. Environmental awareness is on the rise There’s an increasing attention for the sustainable side of entrepreneurship. Environmental consciousness seems to be bigger and more widespread than ever. For example, research from Capterra (Dutch text) shows that 99% of the Dutch are at least partially aware about sustainability. Internationally, research from Mastercard has shown that 54% of the consumers worldwide want to decrease their own carbon footprint. 62% thinks companies have the responsibility to be eco-friendly, now more than ever. These developments of course have their consequences for the event business. The need for sustainability works on three levels: the companies that want (help) to organize an event; the conference centres and other facilitators; and of course the visitors themselves. It’s good to see the importance of a healthy environment is being more widely supported than ever before, on all these levels. Of course, organizing a sustainable event takes time and effort, but it’s also a great way to show your company’s social commitment. It’s easy to be cynical about the latter, but even in that case, it’s hard to deny the positive effects of these efforts. Don’t let the environmental impact become a breaking point In the end, your event needs visitors, no matter how much effort you’ve put in to organize it. The impact on the environment can be a reason not to visit an event (or to attend it digitally). This can be a real breaking point, especially for international meetings. This means you’ll have to choose a location that can easily be reached by public transport, even from abroad. If taking the plane is still necessary after all, you can compensate this a bit by taking other measures. Aside from the impact by travelling, the volume of waste is one of the less charming sides of the event industry. Actively reducing waste is a big contribution to containing the ecological impact of the event. Furthermore, in case almost all of your visitors went there by train, also dealing with that mountain of waste is a real win-win situation, of course. You can outsource sustainability Most companies are used to outsourcing certain operations. At the same time, services have become much more extensive. A good conference centre doesn’t just facilitate your location. Nowadays, it’s also your partner for a wide scale of services that help you to create an unforgettable experience. Sustainability can be seen as a part of that total package. An environmental conscious event location for example invests in a well-insulated building, but also thinks about how to improve the cooperation with their suppliers. After all, sustainability is teamwork. On the one hand, this means you don’t have to worry about these issues. On the other hand, you can show your visitors you made an environmental conscious choice. Again: it’s easy to be cynical about that, but there’s definitely a positive effect. The Beurs van Berlage is a conference centre that really values top-notch service and sustainability. Would you like to know more about our green measures? Then download the free infographic Five-star quality and sustainable.
Blog Three reasons to organize a sustainable event