Reduce, Reuse and Recycle: The magic behind sustainable event management.
Restructuring event management through sustainable means
Managing events can be challenging especially when the resources are scarce. With the rise in the environmental consciousness, businesses are getting serious about their impact on the natural habitat.
Corporates from different sectors are joining hands together to assess and reassure that their practices are soft on the environment. The event management sector is also aware of the importance of protecting the Mother Nature.
What is event management and the significance of sustainability with it?
Event management is the practice of creation and maintenance of event. Yet, adding a conservative tone to event management gives birth to sustainable event management. In other words, sustainable event management is the collection of approaches that focuses on the informed consumption of resources for the sole purpose of environment preservation.
Some of the results of poor event management that do not include thought process are as follows:
- Carbon emissions,
- Over-population,
- Noise pollution,
- High energy consumption and
- Littering.
A study conducted by MeetGreen mentions that a single attendee in a conference produces around 1.89 kg of waste every single day. Out of this, 1.16 kg of ends up as landfill.
It has been also discovered under the same study that travel, energy and food are also major contributors to events that are hazardous to the environment.
How can sustainability be achieved in managing events?
Stakeholders in event management or event planning sector have applied many measures to reverse the adverse effects of event management on the ecosystem.
Corporates have come up with:
- Green catering plan,
- Conducting events in green locations,
- Collaborating with event suppliers that maintain sustainability,
- Marketing or communicating the importance of sustainable event management an
- It goes on.
But, these practices have come to futility.
The Waste Hierarchy: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle
Modelling solutions can have an immense impact on the outputs. The waste hierarchy (known as the 3R: Reduce, Reuse and Recycle) has risen up as a potential solution to unsustainable event management.
Reduce
Reduce stands for minimising the usage of resources or simply the reduction of waste creation. Focusing only on resources that are core and needful must be done to reduce waste generation.
Tip: Purchasing only what is needed, in bulk and choosing items which can be reused over time.
Reuse
Reusing resources as long as or as much as possible. By such means the burden over assets will fall which is another measure to maintain sustainability in event management.
Tip: Paper bags which can be used again and again, refilling water bottles rather purchasing new ones.
Recycle
Recycling or changing the resources or assets at times only when there is a need. Recycling must be only done at its possibility. It is putting the resource for usage in another place or for condemnation if it cannot be used anymore.
Tip: Cardboard box can be recyclee for storing other materials.
Bottom line
All in all, sustainable event management requires thought process, modelling and informed decision-making. With proactive measures aimed to address key issues in event management, high states of sustainability can be achieved.
