How the events and experiences industry is becoming more sustainable

The Covid-19 pandemic, a once-in-a-generation event, has had an irrefutable impact on all of our personal and professional lives. For those of us lucky (or unlucky) enough to be in the events and experiences business, it offered up frankly existential questions. We were forced to cease all activity and left fighting for our business’s survival, and having to justify our industry’s fundamental reason for being.

Thankfully, it slowly ended. We could talk to brands and audiences again; eventually, we could finally execute activities in real life. However, our mindset, expectations and priorities have fundamentally changed. The value of face-to-face interaction has been reframed, and a spotlight is firmly on the environmental impact that our work has on the planet.

Organizing for change

The events industry has grabbed the opportunity to rebuild in a positive and conscious way, building in sustainable and ethically responsible practices into its rebirth. Now, despite the old ‘build and burn’ reputation, experiential is one of the most progressive parts of the marketing industry with regards to sustainability.

While the pandemic decimated the industry, a group of leading agencies parked long-held rivalries and egos to put their hands in their pockets and collectively focus on the issue with the establishment of Isla: a not-for-profit organization designed to accelerate the events and experiences industry’s transition to a sustainable future. The organization now has nearly 200 members and continues to galvanize a diverse events supply chain, including the corporations and brands that commission the work.

Concurrently, the Net Zero Carbon Events pledge was conceived and launched by a global task force of leading events organizations (including mine, Freeman) at Cop26. It aimed to communicate the industry’s commitment to tackling climate change. At Cop27, it constructed an industry-wide roadmap toward net zero by 2050, and targets for emissions reductions by 2030 in line with the Paris Agreement.

In addition, the UK’s advertising industry launched Ad Net Zero with a focus on driving carbon-curbing policies throughout the advertising ecosystem.

Measurement and mindsets

The speed at which these organizations and initiatives were established (and the pace of adoption) has been remarkable. However, the far more important measure of success will be what they are able to achieve.

Trade bodies and associations are notoriously bureaucratic and slow to act despite the good they can achieve through the strong sense of community that underpins them. The positive news is that laser focus on sustainability as a single issue has created many more cross-industry (and beyond) collaboration opportunities.

From the outset, it was important get to a baseline impact measure that the whole industry could use to track its progress, so Isla built Trace, a leading carbon measurement platform from scratch to facilitate this. It’s a platform that Freeman is already using with clients to support our own net-zero commitments.

But sustainability is about far more than just measurement. It’s about having a learning mindset that consciously looks for opportunities to do more with less, to seek alternative solutions rather than relying on offsetting. Our business is committed to this, and Freeman is adapting to ensure our clients are planning and activating fewer but better experiences with good conscience.

This approach may seem at odds with a more reductive point of view that believes the fundamentals of business economics are a driver of over-consumption and, linked to this, an increasing negative environmental impact. But our industry is built on the foundations of face-to-face communication being a catalyst for change.

The events and experience business is a resilient and innovative space that is thriving through change – from building more circular supply chains, to reengineering entire workflows and creating experience programs that are built on positive impact through mitigation and taking a longer view.

The path to a sustainable future is being rapidly mapped out. There may be some missteps and it will no doubt iterate over time as we adapt and learn more. However, positive progress is being and will continue to be made through collaboration and open dialogue across the industry, with clients, agencies and suppliers focused on learning, then acting.

Working together and bringing as many people as possible on the journey with us will always be more effective than operating in isolation.