Building a healthy future
Olympia London commercial director Anna Golden concludes the EN sustainability issue , by saying that inspirational people are the key to improving the world around us
To me , sustainability means existing in a healthy way that minimises any detrimental impacts to your local environment , community and the planet . Where possible , enhancing and more importantly respecting the world around you . Through operating sustainably , you help ensure a healthy future for your business , your team , your industry , and your community .
When I reflect on where the industry was 20 years ago , we ’ ve already come along way . There ’ s now far less waste , less giveaways , less disposables , and generally companies will be active supporting their local community or be involved with good causes . But we ’ re not close to being sustainable as an industry yet , and we need to work collaboratively and collectively at building a healthy future for the UK event industry .
It ’ s easy to get overly proud of individual green or community initiatives and not see the big picture . We ’ ve all done it , and whilst they add a layer to your sustainable planning and strategy – they are and not be the main focus , just window dressing .
Anna Golden
The best way a business can gauge its negative and positive impacts , and improve its sustainability , is to have an overarching ESG strategy that provides self-awareness across the entire organisation and inspires actions .
In 2017 we created our Grand Plan , which added not only more structure to all the work we ’ d been doing in this area , but engaged with every member of the Olympia London team . It created our ESG strategy and our sustainability working group , and moved us away from a ‘ box ticking ’ approach . We purposely set it up to have representatives from all levels and all departments to make sure it became core to our operations , to get buy in across the business , and identify things we could be improving across all our functions .
Through our working group , we created key theme ‘ pillars ’ that resonated and were important to us as a business and helped create umbrella goals and strategies that give our wider team the framework to suggest change and generate initiatives to meet those goals . Our whole team becoming the driving force , setting the objectives and strategies to achieve them and KPI ’ s to measure their success .
A strategy with internal buy-in helps a company have the confidence to set challenging goals . For example , having our Grand Plan in place enabled us to be one of the first to sign up to the net zero industry pledge last year .
While considering what areas to focus on , it ’ s useful to look for inspiration beyond our industry . For example , what can we learn from high street retailers and hotels ? Like venues they have physical spaces to manage and many visitors . What can we learn from digital companies like Google ? They affect the lives and shopping behaviours of millions .
We have a long way to go . But one thing I ’ ve learnt , is that our staff , and the businesses we work with , can inspire the best solutions for improving our impact . EN
May — 51