Sustainability hese recent terrifying
T scenes of flood waters gushing into New York subways drove home the point : Even as Covid-19 has dominated the news and business agenda this year , you would have been hard-pressed not to be aware of the ‘ heat dome ’ and record temperatures in North America , disastrous wildfires around the world , unseasonal storms , and more . We are all aware of the climate crisis and the importance of it was summed up by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ( IPCC ) report in early August which gave some stark warnings about just how serious are the steps which need to be taken . But , with the events industry still reeling from the impact of the pandemic and uncertainty still prevalent even as optimism rises , just how much time and attention can the exhibition world afford to pay to this issue ? More than you might imagine would seem to be the answer . Stephanie Mathas is CSR and sustainability manager at RAI Amsterdam as well as the chair of UFI ’ s Sustainable Development Working Group . She said : “ Climate change and the way we treat our planet will have an impact on all of us . The IPCC report underlines and emphasises the urgency to act . Within our business and stakeholders , including public authorities and the financial community , we are seeing more and more attention worldwide for sustainability . I expect that this will only increase . Doing nothing is no longer an option .” Fortunately , there is a lot going on in the lead up to the COP26 conference scheduled for Glasgow in November . The new Net Zero Carbon Events initiative is backed by a number of leading industry associations including UFI , ICCA , and AIPC , and it is hosted by the Joint Meetings Industry Council ( JMIC ). Read more on p58 .
Strong priority Research on the status of sustainability in exhibitions was published by UFI in late July and noted that
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Focusing on Zero
Paul Woodward , guest editor of EN sister-title EW , responds to the IPCC report ’ s warnings and the exhibition and wider events industry ’ s initial response to it
“ even though the Covid-19 pandemic has severely hit the economy , the fundamentals remain , and sustainability is a strong priority for exhibitions and their participants .” It may be a strong priority , but there is clearly still a long way to go . The report commented that the industry ’ s transition towards sustainability has progressed to halfway between “ only starting ” and “ very advanced ”. Significant emphasis was placed on what has been a favourite argument of the industry for many years ; that doing one trip to meet as many people as possible at a business event can lead to a significant reduction in travel . Clearly , however , much more is needed . The UFI July report noted that while almost three-quarters of exhibitors and visitors “ either agreed or strongly agreed that it is important for a trade show to display a strong commitment to sustainability ”, only a little over one-third of them said “ they would not attend a trade show that does not have a responsible approach to sustainability ”. Exhibition participants reportedly rated the industry ’ s performance on sustainability as “ average ”. But pressure is increasingly coming onto companies in the industry from a range of stakeholders including the investment community , which is increasingly focused on demands that their portfolios are ‘ green ’. And this means that investment with events companies continues to be focused on sustainability initiatives . The UFI report noted that investments from the exhibition industry for programmes related to sustainability had not been as affected as others . In June 2020 , it said , while 85 % of companies had stopped or decreased their overall level of investments , that was the case for ‘ only ’ 54 % of companies for investments in programmes related to sustainability , and there was ‘ no ’ or ‘ limited impact ’ for activities related to sustainability for 51 % of them . Mathas is pretty direct about the importance of this . “ We don ’ t have the luxury to slow down . We should not
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