ABSTRACT
The societal push towards sustainable development has increasingly impacted the way public and business events have been planned and delivered over the past decade. The COP26 Summit, the largest conference hosted by the UK government, took place in Glasgow in 2021, in order to accelerate action. It is within this context of increased interest in, and focus on, sustainability, the environment and climate change that the events industry is operating. While acknowledging that the concept of sustainable development embraces social, economic and environmental components, this chapter mainly focuses on the latter dimension. The chapter begins by providing an overview of the environmental impacts that can flow from the conduct of events before moving on to discuss approaches to managing these impacts. Events industry responses to the challenge of delivering ‘green’ events will then be overviewed. This will be followed by a brief discussion of environmental certification programmes operating in the events field and techniques for measuring event environmental impacts. The chapter concludes with two case studies, ‘Boardmasters’ approach to sustainability’ and ‘The Ocean Race 2017-2018’.
