Sustainability

Gamifying event sustainability

Posted on April 21, 2016

Tomorrow, 22 April, I’m hosting #CSRshareDay Twitter chat about gamifying event sustainability. Project organised by Positive Impact Events, #CSRshareDay is a global initiative to share stories about Social Corporate Responsibility and sustainability within the events sector.

The aim of this campaign is to connect with and inspire the industry to take action within their event communities, to spread examples of best practices, innovation and ideas about sustainability, corporate social responsibility and carbon reduction within the event industry.

It’s a 24 hour Twitter chat that will begin at 00:00 GMT, when each hour is hosted by event sustainability leaders around the world and is coinciding with the Earth Day.

Gamifying event sustainability

At 1pm BST (UK) I’ll take over and host a chat about gamifying event sustainability. Over the past years I observed how gamification increases attendee engagement, interaction and learning while having fun.

So why not use gamification to teach about sustainability? Through fun, educating, interactive games our participants can start engaging from the very beginning and take small actions that can drive bigger change in our industry, communities and personal lives.

In this hour, let’s share ideas why gamification is important and how can we create such fun, engaging and educating experiences.

Questions

Q1: What event planners can achieve by gamifying event sustainability?
Q2: What areas of the event can you gamify so attendees engage in sustainability (e.g. – food, education session etc.)
Q3: How can you reward attendees for engaging in sustainability?
Q4: How can you gamify sustainability with technology?
Q5: How can you gamify sustainability without technology?
Q6: How gamification can drive behavioural change?
Q7: Can you share a memorable experience or example of gamifying sustainability?

You can view the list of all hosts and their time slots here.

I’ll see you tomorrow at 1pm BST on Twitter, spread the word and let’s drive sustainable change together!

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Sustainability

Simple steps towards more sustainable events

Posted on March 11, 2016

In February I attended an Event Marketing Association (EMA) event about sustainability at the Royal Society of Chemistry. EMA is a not-for-profit industry association for in-house corporate event planners and hosts monthly educational events for its members and it’s the only association I’m a member of.

Sustainability is high on the corporate agenda but are we, event planners, doing enough to drive change and run more sustainable events?

Two fantastic speakers Anna Loveridge, Creative Content Co-ordinator at Positive Impact Events and Sam Wilson, Director and Founder at EcoEvents joined to share their experience and expertise with us.

Anna opened the discussion and said it’s not a one size fits all and it’s very important to look at what you are doing now before you do more, e.g. – do the delegates need a transport to and from the venue, do they use plastic or glass bottles, do they have notepads that are wasted in the end of the event etc.

She added that planners have to be creative and innovative with sustainability, an example is to choose food based on what the venue has to offer for the week rather than asking for particular items.

Good practice is to start by doing the small and “obvious” things, ones that look easy, and with the money saved do things for the long term.

Then we discussed the ISO 20121 accreditation which is an international standard used by 30 countries that specifies the requirements for organisations in the events industry to improve their sustainability practices across different areas, e.g. – waste, legacy, food etc., not all need to be tackled at once.

Sam said it’s important for planners to get to know their corporate policy and request suppliers on key event deliverables. Also it’s important to have this agreement in writing.

Sustainability is not “either or” phenomenon. There is no such thing as a sustainable or green event and this thinking is a barrier to change. It’s about making measurable progress, incorporating the three pillars – social, economic and environmental, including them in the decision making process and making it a process of continual improvement cycle: plan, do, check and act.

Sam presented the event sustainability policy which event planners can follow to be able to prioritise their actions. Start by defining who the key parties are and what matters to them (Internal teams, sponsors, community, participants). Then put plans, programmes and legislations in place and train people in what they need to know about them. Lastly, check what you’re doing, what goes well and what doesn’t and enhance the plan for the next event cycle. By following this process you can prioritise what to focus on first and you don’t need to focus on all at once.

This presentation was followed by an interesting Q & A before further drinks, food and networking.

The catering was served by Harbour & Jones, my favourite caterer in the UK. We had canapés to start with, followed by bowl food.

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Sustainability

Sustainable practices for #eventprofs – Takeaways from Sustainable Brands

Posted on November 25, 2015

Last week I attended Sustainable Brands London at The Beaumont Estate in Windsor. It was a three day event of which I only attended the last one. It wasn’t for event planners (as the ones I usually attend) but I still picked up few excellent tips I can use to run more sustainable events. Here are my takeaways.

Excite your audience about renewable energy

The highlight of the morning session was a presentation by Laurence Kemball-Cook founder and CEO at Pavegen Systems which is a flooring tile that converts steps into electrical power. It has two main applications, first is that energy is stored in batteries and used for lighting later on and secondly for data, e.g.- how fast people move. Company’s vision is to use this data to convert it into something tangible companies can use to interact with customers. One of the projects they had was with Shell where they installed a football pitch in Brazilian favela so the kids could play safely at night. It was very successful and their vision is to install it in stadiums around the world. Laurence is also a great speaker and can excite the audience about renewable energy! His presentation is available online so definitely recommend you to watch.

Communicate sustainability

In the afternoon we could choose between three different sessions, one of which was “Communicating Sustainability at a Brand Level: A Close Look at What is Working, and What Isn’t, for the 15 Largest Global FMCG Companies”. Matthew Yeomans, founder of Sustainly talked about the research they conducted online observing the way brands communicate sustainability to their audience on Facebook and how audience interacts with it. They found out that while brands don’t communicate it enough on Facebook, audience engages in the comment section about certain topics, Nespresso capsules for example. Another interesting point he mentioned was that if you, as a brand, want to communicate sustainability you should use visuals as they are more engaging than text. Takeaway from this session was that Facebook is still one of the major social media channels and brands should use it to communicate sustainability and not only as a sales and marketing platform.

Driving behavioural change

Second session was about behavioural change “On a Quest for Solving Ever More Complex Behavior Change Challenges: Emerging New Tools and Frameworks” moderated by Joss Tantram Founding Partner at Terrafiniti and hosted Alex Batchelor, Chief Operations Officer at BrainJuicer and Sille Krukow, Chief Behavioral Designer at Krukow. Alex talked about consumer behaviour and said that before engaging people in sustainability we need to understand human behaviour. He showed some examples, e.g. when logging into wifi it can be anything from 22 to 4 inputs, thus showing that designing sustainable behaviour is making life easier, not more complicated. Also he mentioned that the language brands use to communicate sustainability can play a major role in decision making.

Sille’s talk was more from an academic point of view and looked at theories such as “designing choice architecture” – instead of creating more awareness on sustainability guide employees and customers to change behaviour. Examples include reducing plate size at food buffets, and instead of saying “don’t” show how to do the right thing, e.g. – indicating where to dispose cigarette butts.

To conclude, motivation and education don’t lead to behavioural change, therefore behavioural change is how to change customer and employee behaviour in a way that they will be comfortable with it and embrace the change.

In the closing session the founder and CEO of SB brands KoAnn Vikoren Skrzyniarz announced that from next year the event will be moving to the capital of sustainable meetings, Copenhagen and Ulrika Mårtensson from Wonderful Copenhagen took the stage to welcome everyone next year in Copenhagen. I really admire how committed the team at Wonderful Copenhagen is and how they engage the different stakeholders to promote the city and its USPs internationally. Ulrika was joined by Thomas Kloster founder at WhereGoodGrows and Inge Huijbrechts, Global Vice President Responsible Business at Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group and Radisson Blu Scandinavia Hotel, where the event will take place. The hotel is known as a frontrunner within sustainable hotel management and they are aiming to welcome about 500 participants.

Overall the event was very good and provided excellent content. There were few points they can improve in the future.

First of all in terms of marketing, the event was branded as Sustainable Brands London which is wrong as it took place in Windsor. It is not relevant anymore as the event will be moving to Copenhagen next year but just a takeaway for event planners to be aware of it.

Secondly sustainable practices weren’t present at the venue or the event. Feedback forms for example were in paper format rather than electronic. The venue itself is not classified as a sustainable venue and I would expect for such conference to take place at a sustainable venue, e.g. -The Crystal. On the other hand I assume the organisers chose this venue because it is close to Heathrow airport and many delegates came from oversees.

Lastly I found the afternoon sessions too long, up to 1.5 hours. It is not so easy to stay concentrated for so long so I would highly recommend doing shorter sessions and maybe more interactive, especially after lunch break .

I have no doubt that from next year the event will have a new approach to sustainability, offering the delegates the chance not only to hear about it but also to be more engaged and implement it.

See you next year in Copenhagen!

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Sustainability

Showslice brings the sharing economy to live events

Posted on November 21, 2015

Back in October I attended the London Lifestyle Awards as a guest of of Showslice. That was their first “sliced” event and was honour to be part of it. Showslice brings the sharing economy to the events industry by offering event organisers to share their production costs with another event(s). On this occasion, Woman of the Future Awards took place on Tuesday the 27th October followed by the London Lifestyle Awards on Wednesday the 28th October at Hilton London Park Lane. The London Lifestyle Awards were created in 2010 by Jason Gale to celebrate the businesses, the people and the places that make London a world class city and it was a very exciting and entertaining event to attend. Shortlisted business included restaurants, bars, nightclubs, sports clubs and other venues, hair stylists and more.

The highlight of the evening for me was the performance by London Cabaret Club, it was just WOW! Also the food was very good the service team didn’t know what the dished were so we had to ask the head waiter (I ordered the vegetarian dish). Nevertheless, overall I had a positive experience at the Hilton London Park Lane.

As you know setting up production for an award night, festival or sporting event is very costly and sometimes setting up and de-rig can take longer than the event itself! So Showslice is a great solution for those who care about the environment and want to save costs. I asked the team at Showslice to tell me more about their innovative concept.

How long Showslice is in operation?

Showslice officaly launched in November 2014 at IBTM Barcelona coming runners up in the innovations zone that year. Having only been operating for 2 weeks this was an achievement and the idea of Showslice was received well by the international community of event operators.

Who is your target audience?

Showslice is able to work with any event owner on a larger scale. To provide the savings and sustainability aspects of what Showslice can offer, each event needs to be sizable in manner i.e. require some form of staging, sound, lighting and production. These can be any events from concerts, gala’s, awards ceremonies to large AGM’s and association dinners. Currently there are over 1000 of these events taking place in London alone each year. Showslice can connect all of these through their platform and network to help organisers reduce logistics, cost, time and waste whilst also providing a collaborative approach to planning. This can create larger and better events for clients whilst still operating within their budget.

It is not just about cost savings but also about growth and guest experiences for our clients and mitigating the risks involved with planning a larger event than the previous year. Providing the X factor if you like without incurring the costs associated with that should you be doing it on your own. Event owners often have their budgets and are going to spend it. Ok that’s great however by combining your budget with another organiser or several, Showslice can help facilitate much better rates which can then be used for additional equipment which is staying in one location for the week. For example, holographic projection are difficult to set up, expensive and time consuming. But what if organisers could share this technology over a week? What would your guest experience be and media coverage from an event such as that? This is all possible with collaboration through Showslice.

Background of founders

Damian Oracki, Showslice founder, is an event services entrepreneur who has worked on the supplier and temporary infrastructure side of the events industry for just over 10 years including London 2012 and the Rugby World Cup 2015. As a supplier, he has worked with a myriad of production companies, event management agencies and venues where he provided services that included the logistical, venue management & health & safety aspects for some of the largest events in the world.

Damian was often involved in setting up large back-to-back events sharing the same infrastructure at one venue however, as with most event professionals, Damian constantly found himself moving on from one stand-alone event to the next, quite often within the same London mile from each other. Stemming from his frustration in the lack of communication and collaboration between event owners, coupled with the increase in industry budget cuts and the growing awareness of climate change, Damian founded Showslice, an award winning confidential online platform and service that helps event owners connect and collaborate to share infrastructure costs back-to-back.

Jon Gunn, Showslice COO is an experienced project and venue management expert. Having managed several large venues and events over 20 years he played key operational management role in ensuring the success of the Commonwealth Games Manchester 2002 and the Olympic Games London2012. Jon opened and operated some of the UK’s most prestigious venues over a 20 year career such as the Grand Central Pools, Sports City Manchester, Etihad Stadium, National Squash and Athletic Centre.

How did up come up with the idea?

Having worked on events for several years Damian noticed that whilst setting up the infrastructure (Staging, lighting etc.) this took a large amount of time and staffing, then there would be a technical rehearsal, then the show itsself and then the de-rig of equipment. This could take over 2 days depending on the size of event but certainly at least 13 hours per day from start to finish. At the end of the de-rig another company would come in and start putting up almost identical infrastructure. Imagine if these two organisers had communicated between each other, the time, logistics, cost and waste saved. Damian started designing the platform enabling event owns to communicate with each other and a system where Showslice can connect all of the above from venues, suppliers and services in one place reducing the amount of time, equipment staffing and logistics required. Nearing completion of the platform Damian contacted Jon who thought this was a real solution to many of the issues facing organisers, venues and suppliers. Once the platform was completed Damian and Jon started developing a network of clients and logistics needed to pull all of these resources together. Now Showslice are working with some of the largest names in the industry (The London Mayors Office, Centaur Media, NSPCC, Ricoh and the Prince’s Trust) to name but a few growing their network and making valued connections for clients.

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Sustainability

Food for Learning – Be Healthy, Be Happy and #BeeSustain

Posted on November 17, 2014

When I travelled to Copenhagen last month for the #BeeSustain Tweet Tour, little I knew about the vibrant Danish food scene. This year I started paying much more attention to the nutritional aspects of food as an integral part of event planning and this trip was just right to show how to integrate food into meetings and how to make meetings more productive. Not only had I really enjoyed my every single meal over the three days, I also learned about the “food for learning” concept designed by the Pharmakon Conference Centre.

Pharmakon Conference Centre

After our visit to the Thorshøjgaard farm, we continued to the Pharmakon Conference Centre in Hillerød for lunch and presentation. Pharmakon specialises in research, training and consulting for the pharmaceutical sector and runs the conference centre as one of their business units. This year they also have won the title “Denmark’s Healthiest Company 2014” because they highly support and facilitate the work life balance of their employees.

The conference facilities include 9 functional rooms, 1 conference hall and 135 guest rooms. The conference hall, the largest of all can accommodate up to 200 delegates in a theatre style.

The conference centre is surrounded by green yards, area suitable for recreation and teambuilding to incorporate into the meeting design.

Food for Learning

Meetings and conferences can be sometimes very long and tedious and while the level of concentration is very high in the morning, it can drop down very quickly after lunch break. Food plays a major role in the success of our meetings, seminars or conferences and that has greatly to do with blood sugar controlling the concentration levels. To get the most out of the event, the blood sugar of participants must stay stable throughout the day.

The team at Conference Centre has developed the “food for learning concept” that ensures to keep participants blood sugar at a constant and stable level throughout the day. Food for learning includes healthy snacks, combined with various juices and together they have all the nutrition our body needs to keep the level of concentration high.

After the presentation it was our time for “food for learning”. We had a selection of delicious snacks, both sweet and savoury. I wish I could try all of them, by I just couldn’t eat so much, so went only for the mini rye loaves with dark chocolate, quince compote and pear elderberry juice. Yum.

Mini rye loaves with dark chocolate, quince compote and pear elderberry juice

Crisp bread, apricot-carrot puree and orange paired with redcurrant juice with ginger

Full meal breadsticks with puree of baked root vegetables

I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic. What food do you think is the most suitable to keep attendees’ levels of concentration high during longs days of meetings and seminars?

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