Two years ago, the Net Zero Carbon Events (NZCE) Journey initiative began at a COP event in Glasgow. Initially, the industry carved out five work streams where it could improve its carbon footprint, including venue energy, food and food waste, logistics, smart production and waste management, as well as travel and accommodation.
Since then, the initiative has gained more than 750 signatories. “The idea is that you do whatever you are comfortable with and that you can easily implement in your organisation and ecosystem. The important thing was to get the industry to start somewhere,” explained IFES Vice President and Holtmann+ CEO Jörg Zeissig during an Event Greening Forum (EGF) workshop, titled ‘Building Better NZCEvents, Together’, on 8 August 2024.
Now, the time has come to implement all of this knowledge. “We’ve done enough talking, it’s time to start walking the walk, but in order to do that on a global scale, there needs to be some industry standards”, says Zeissig.
Better Stands and standards
Zeissig used the Better Stands initiative by Informa as an example of a standard that can be adopted globally.
“We want to get rid of disposable stands, but the industry believes the sustainable alternative kills flexibility, is more expensive and is uglier. It’s not true – but it’s up to us to change that narrative, which is what the Better Stands initiative aims to do.”
He compared it to building a Lego house, yes it might be more expensive than the other toys, but there’s a lot more value in it: it’s reusable, it’s durable, it’s customisable, and it’s fun. This concept is called design for disassembly (DfD), and might very well be the future of eventing, said Zeissig.
What sets DfD apart, especially in the stand-building context, is that it starts during the planning stage of an event – it’s not just an afterthought. “At the moment, a lot of sustainability assessments only happen after a trade show or event, but that’s like buying a newspaper that was printed yesterday. With standards like Better Stands, the industry can ensure it’s up to date with the most recent and most sustainable trends before it hosts events,” Zeissig explained.
This is especially important at a time when greenwashing is a big problem in the sustainability space – as many organisations are misled by misinformation or apply advice from another industry that might not be applicable to their own. “With standards, we can ensure that green eventing is not just a tickbox activity but truly impactful.”
A central hub for sustainable event practices
Another example of a standard that can improve the scalability and adoption speed of sustainable eventing is a common material library. “If we develop a master database from our industry, it has to consist of decent data, which we have to collect from various partners in the industry,” Zeissig said.
There’s still a lot of information out there, he explained.
“There’s a lot of information around sustainability in the construction industry, for example, but that only covers 60% of what we do in the exhibition space, which is only a small part of the bigger MICE umbrella. That means we have to fill the gaps.”
He added that, while the carbon equivalent information is in the database, we need to have a definition of those items (for example, which furniture you can reuse and how often), as well as which of them are ready to use. “I’ve already picked up 60 different solutions that haven’t been ready to implement yet – it’s either been superficial, too hard to manage, or too detailed to understand.”
And while he acknowledged that the applications of this information won’t always work for everyone, it creates a baseline that everyone can start from and build on. “We don’t want to create any hesitation around wanting to make things better and moving towards a more sustainable environment. Once we have a central database, we can take those behaviours and easily translate them into other ecosystems,” he added.
Reaching our NZCE goal by 2050, together
The material library will also mean more diversity and equal opportunities to compete for the industry – which is part of the broader ESG imperative. “We’re not trying to create a scenario where players are competing around whose aluminium stands can be reused more, because that confuses the industry and takes away from the true purpose of the NZCE Journey. There shouldn’t be a difference, there should be a best standard that the entire industry works towards achieving,” Zeissig explained.
There are a lot of stakeholders across the MICE ecosystem, from the organisers and exhibitors who appoint service providers and agencies to assemble teams, to the visitors and public communities, and more.
“We should be providing each other with incentives and tenders to enable our industry,” Zeissig said. “Initiatives like these depend on our collaboration to work. We have to train each other, share information with each other, and establish industry best practices together.”
After all, the goal is to reach carbon zero emissions by 2050 as an industry, and we can’t do that if we go the NZCE Journey solo. “Working together is imperative,” concludes Zeissig.