A year on from the appointment of our very first Head of ESG, Kate Holliday, we continue to work hard blending innovation with environmental responsibility under her guidance. Kate has helped us to focus, not just on what we have achieved, but also on what needs to be done on our pathway to Net Zero.
During the past few years GES has made substantial strides toward reducing its ecological footprint, adopting green technologies, and fostering sustainable business practices across its operations. But we also recognise how important it is to ensure we are ready to meet the challenges ahead. So, this year, for the first time, we brought together both our achievements and aspirations in our inaugural Progress Report. The report has allowed us to pause and take stock, celebrating how far we’ve come but also acknowledging how much further we need to go. It also serves as a pre-cursor to our forthcoming roadmap which we are taking our time to create to ensure it is both ambitious and achievable.
Since joining us in 2023 and penning the report, one point that Kate has continued to raise is the importance and relevance of good data. We all recognise that data is a challenge for the industry, but we also need to understand that it presents a huge opportunity. Gaps in data make effective reporting extremely difficult and Kate has repeatedly called on the industry to better support the cause.
In fact, this month Kate appeared at Event Sustainability Live to discuss just this in a session entitled, Crunching the Data: How and What to do with Data to Make the Best Decisions for Your Business. The forum discussed the confusing industry landscape, that includes large numbers of event organisers all of whom are collecting data, using different metrics, third parties, and reference points. Similarly, we have venues, caterers, carriers and many others across the events ecosystem also doing their own measurements. So, Kate sat alongside industry peers to discuss how we wade through the data soup to make decisions that not only benefit our businesses, but those around us too. The session looked at examples of meaningful decisions, based on quality, collaborative sustainability data. One such example was our own case study on event flooring, which showed that by collecting product specific emissions data for event flooring, manufacturing emissions were around 44% less than previously calculated using standard DEFRA material emissions factors. This has resulted in the team relying less on the DEFRA emission factors and – by having accurate calculations – being able to start reporting more accurately and in turn truly understand the industry’s exact impact.
Whether we’re able to create a consistent and common standpoint in the search for transformative, reliable data is uncertain, but what we do know is that we cannot do it alone.
So, as we put the finishing touches to our roadmap and continue to address the impact of our business, we challenge the industry to do the same – not in competition but with the shared ambition of manifesting real, demonstrable change.
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Author: Adam Parry
Adam is the co-founder and editor of www.eventindustrynews.com Adam, a technology evangelist also organises Event Tech Live, Europe’s only show dedicated to event technology and the Event Technology Awards. Both events take place in November, London.
