Sustainable Event Management: A Brand-Enhancing Opportunity

Sustainable events offer a range of opportunities for brands, from the trialling of new packaging ideas and concepts to gathering consumer feedback and brand engagement.

Amy Hooper, Innovation Manager at sustainable waste management leader, Biffa, and Craig Stobie, Global Sector Development Director, Domino Printing Sciences (pictured left), explore how brands can use events to test potential solutions to practical issues and global challenges – and answer the question: Are sustainable events here to stay?

 

The rise of the sustainable event

Last year saw some fantastic examples of sustainable events, not least on the live music front. Music industry body Live established its “Green and Sustainability Clauses for Artist Contract”, focusing on greener practices in the live industry, including energy use, water reduction, water management, eco-friendly merchandise, and how audiences travel to festivals.

August 2024 also saw British trip-hop band Massive Attack host a one-day, low-carbon music festival with a specific focus on environmental sustainability. The event – which boasted all vegan catering, composting toilets, and electrically powered stages, stalls, and logistics – is said to have been the lowest-carbon concert of its scale ever held, with the band stating, “We can move the dial”, though it’s certainly not the first example of a more ‘sustainable’ approach to event management.

Each year, Olympic athletes sleep on recyclable cardboard beds; FIFA is taking steps to measure, reduce, and offset World Cup-related greenhouse gas emissions; and international trade shows are taking a stance on green energy. Around the world, sustainable events are gaining pace as brands and businesses face pressure from governments, regulators, and consumers to reduce their environmental impact.

While the environmental impact of the events sector is significant, sustainable development in this industry could – and should – go beyond merely reducing this impact. Events bring considerable opportunities to raise the bar on broader sustainability challenges. Hosting a sustainable event is a chance not only to promote green initiatives but also to explore society’s engagement with environmental matters and trial innovations that might address them.

 

Why make events sustainable?

The events industry carries a significant responsibility for the production of waste and emissions. The average event wastes 15–20% of all the food it produces, and the average conference attendee generates 1.89kg of waste (of which 1.16kg is landfilled) and more than 176kg of CO2 emissions per day. In 2022, it was estimated that the events industry was responsible for 10% of total global CO2 emissions, equivalent to the annual emissions of the USA.

It may, therefore, be easy to think that the best solution would be to move away from in-person events altogether or at least dramatically reduce their numbers. However, the importance of interacting with colleagues, customers, and suppliers face-to-face rather than online cannot be underestimated.

Events are dynamic spaces where people come together to network and share experiences; they serve as catalysts for idea generation, innovation, and collaboration. When it comes to environmental sustainability, events have an almost unparalleled role to play in promoting ideas and innovations and testing concepts aimed at making different industries more sustainable.

 

A closed-loop ecosystem

Events, including brand-sponsored consumer events, as well as trade shows, and conferences, provide a fantastic closed-loop ecosystem that organisations can use to run pilot projects, or trial initiatives before rolling out to larger markets. Out in the real world, brands have very little insight into, or control over, how a consumer will engage with or discard packaging and products. Events allow businesses a unique opportunity to oversee many key aspects of consumer interaction with items – from usage to disposal. It is even possible to create and test scenarios aimed at enabling more control of the end-of-life phase.

Within an enclosed event space, brands can trial new packaging ideas and monitor how these perform, as well as whether consumers dispose of items in the desired and/or expected way. This real-world, real-time feedback provides key insight into whether a new packaging design or material is practical for larger-scale use.

This opportunity to gather feedback is particularly valuable when considering the vast challenges global brands face, including how to implement scalable, practical solutions for reusable or returnable packaging. Events offer a controlled environment to test new packaging concepts and solutions, such as gamification and providing dedicated smart bins that scan returned smart packaging equipped with technologies like QR codes, radio frequency identity (RFID) tags, or near-field communication (NFC) chips.

Whether it’s reusable containers, fully compostable packaging, recycling, or a mix of all three, the closed-loop nature of events allows brands to see first-hand how consumers respond to packaging while providing an opportunity to better control or support a more sustainable end-of-life phase.

 

Consumer connection

A direct line to an already engaged audience allows brands to engage with consumers and see their responses. Events provide a relatively unique opportunity to access this level of direct consumer engagement.

During the 2022 Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, for example, over 100 Biffa employees volunteered as Recycling Ambassadors, engaging with event attendees and helping them use the correct bins for their waste, and ultimately delivering on their shared ambitions to create a zero waste to landfill event. This face-to-face engagement provided the opportunity to connect directly with attendees, uncovering valuable insights into consumer perspectives on waste and witnessing first-hand how different packaging types were received.

The growing instance of packaging equipped with technologies like RFID tags, microchips, or QR codes for consumer engagement, gamification, and marketing – also known as ‘connected packaging’ – can help brands collect this valuable consumer feedback. Are consumers excited by the new concepts? Are there any issues or improvements that would make recycling or reusing packaging easier or more instinctive?

This first-hand data can allow brands to modify their packaging strategy to ensure they can create products that are easy to use, have an appropriate end-of-life approach in place, and resonate with their target audience. Moreover, it can offer brands the insights needed to better understand true scope 3 emissions, assess downstream impact of products, and advance toward a lower-impact strategy.

 

Brand awareness

Of course, the benefits of running an event with a clear focus on environmental sustainability extend further than being able to trial new products and ideas and collect consumer feedback. There’s a growing body of evidence that brands with clear commitments to sustainability are garnering positive consumer sentiment.

According to Statista, in 2021, approximately 44% of consumers globally said they were more likely to buy from a brand with clear environmental commitments. A 2023 report from Deloitte suggests that consumers want businesses to help them adopt more sustainable habits and are prepared to be loyal to those who do so, with one in three consumers (30%) having boycotted certain brands because of sustainability-related concerns.

By running, or sponsoring, an event with a clear focus on improving current practices, brands can increase awareness of their sustainability goals and commitments, enhancing brand loyalty amongst a consumer base likely to spread the positive word.

 

Conclusion

With the pace and support growing for sustainable events, it’s clear that this is more than just a passing trend.

From the desire to reduce the environmental impact of the events industry and increasing consumer demand for sustainable brands and products, to the opportunity to use event platforms to innovate, collaborate, trial new ideas and concepts, and promote innovations, it’s clear there’s never been a better time to explore options for connected packaging at sustainable events.