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As an event planner, it is your responsibility to implement sustainable event principles into your event plan, in order to ensure your event is in line with the event industry’s broader push towards increased sustainability.
In this article, you will discover 5 great sustainability event tips, as well as eco-friendly events examples to help make your switch to more environmental events in 2023!
What is sustainability?
Sustainability is currently a big deal in the events industry, and there are guidelines to follow to successfully pull off a sustainable event.
For an event to be labelled sustainable, it must actively work to reduce negative impacts on the environment and have a beneficial impact on the local community within which it is hosted.
Sustainable event practice is not something that can be passively dealt with, organising a sustainable event should be thought out, intentional, and conducted responsibly. Sustainable event practice is a task that requires you to set and actively work towards meeting targets and goals, and you will need to regularly revisit these goals throughout the planning process to ensure you make sufficient progress.
5 sustainable event practices
1. Choose an eco-friendly venue
In your hunt for the perfect event venue, look out for those that have good green accreditation. If your venue is already pushing sustainable event practices, then you can see that you are both working towards similar goals and the responsibility is not all on you as the event organiser to maximise the sustainability of your event.
Eco-friendly venues might have obtained their credentials through their commitment to recycling (recycling stations found throughout the venue), water filters, smart room temperature controls, and/or reusable linen and towel policies.
2. Encourage public transport
If you are hosting an in-person event then your attendees will have to travel to engage with your event. How they choose to travel to your event has a significant impact on the size of the event’s carbon footprint.
In your correspondence about the event be sure to advocate for the use of public transport to travel to your event and provide details of how to locate the venue from the nearest train station etc. in order to make public transport an easy and accessible option for your attendees.
The availability of public transportation should have already helped you in your selection of venue in hte first place.
To reduce the event’s carbon footprint even further, you could consider offering the option of joining your event remotely online in order to reduce the number of people travelling to your venue, especially if your venue is not in an accessible location.
3. Reduce food waste
Your catering choices can also act as a significant reflection of the sustainability of your event, and give you greater flexibility to increase its sustainability.
Food waste can often be a sign of poor sustainability practices. You can work to prevent this by knowing how many attendees to expect and ordering the correct amount of food, choosing food and drink that has minimal packaging, and not offering single-use plates and cutlery.
It can be difficult to completely eradicate food waste, so be sure to research food donation centres in the local area so you can donate any surplus.
Another great option to make your catering more eco-friendly is to place emphasis on plant-based food options, as these are responsible for fewer carbon emissions than meat-heavy dishes.
4. Keep all information digital
Opting for a digital-heavy approach to events is a great way to minimise resource waste.
Instead of having physical paperwork, you can operate your event on a digital ticket and registration basis. Contactless check-in reduces a whole lot of unnecessary paper!
Another way to keep information-sharing at your event digital is through QR codes. QR codes can be scanned by your attendees from a screen, directing them to a webpage or document of information, as opposed to distributing it on paper.
5. Avoid single-use plastic
This one has been mentioned already with regard to catering, but avoiding single-use plastic is so easy and can make a real difference.
Scrapping single-use plastic can be as simple as offering water stations for your attendees to fill up their reusable bottles and banning plastic cutlery, straws and decorations. It is actually more financially viable to invest in reusable cutlery and decorations in the long run anyway (we assume you will not just be hosting the one event!)
This also means avoiding plastic wrapping and packaging on giveaways, gift bags and other types of single-use plastics, including the gifts themselves!
Hopefully, these sustainability event ideas have helped you can see that you are only a few small steps away from hosting a sustainable event! These eco-friendly event examples truly show that environmental events in 2023 should be the only way forward.
At Splento, we’re committed to helping you plan sustainable events that are both eco-friendly and stylish. From selecting sustainable materials to reducing waste, we’re here to help you make a positive impact on the planet.
If you’re interested in learning more about how we can help you plan a sustainable event, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. We’re always here to help.
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