How collaboration helps drive sustainability in events

One big positive for the events industry that came out of the global pandemic is a willingness to collaborate. And through collaboration, everyone has recognised just how powerful and beneficial it is – and can be.

For this reason, Cvent decided to talk about Achieving sustainability through radical collaboration on its latest Great Events podcast. Host Alyssa Peltier was joined by two guests: Kris Justice, Senior Manager on the Cvent Enterprise Client Success Team, and Ben Quarrell, the Co-founder of Isla and Trace, the carbon measurement platform.

The sustainability journey shouldn’t be done alone

Alyssa started by sharing that in the past year and half, Cvent’s customer base has ramped up their interest in sustainability. Because it is such a new aspect to event planning for many, there are several potential pitfalls including the risk of greenwashing. To help stop events from stumbling into too many pitfalls, a number of collaborative strategies were discussed.

“Without a shared definition of what sustainability is and what the metrics for a sustainable event are, it is very hard for the events industry to know what to do.”

For example:

• Collaboration is important in terms of defining success. Kris argued that without a shared definition of what sustainability is and what the metrics for a sustainable event are, it is very hard for the events industry to know what to do.
• Ben highlighted the role of technology in advancing sustainable events. He believes that the point of technology is to make it easier for people to do things. A number of tech tools – including Isla, Tread and Cvent – gather and share information, as well as the guidance that is needed to make better decisions.
• Ben also argued that education is critical. As the events sector becomes increasingly educated about sustainability issues, we will be able to have conversations at increasingly higher levels. When this happens, people will not be able to get away with greenwashing and other poor practices.

To listen to the full podcast, and other Cvent podcasts, click here.

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