9 sustainable event ideas
From hosting virtual conferences to repurposing exhibition stands as cow shelters, brands can find ways to make their events more sustainable.
Events help marketers generate leads and engagement, but they can also damage the environment.
Organizations often host and participate in events, such as conferences, trade shows and webinars, because they offer marketing teams a range of benefits, including brand recognition and broad networking opportunities. However, these events can strain the environment, as they often require long-distance travel and generate a lot of waste. Therefore, brands should implement sustainable event ideas to minimize their events' environmental effects.
"You want to be approaching your events with a circular economy mindset," said Conrad Mills, analyst at Forrester Research.
Marketers should consider the following sustainable event ideas to reduce waste and carbon emissions at their next gathering.
1. Minimize transportation emissions
Since attendee travel, especially air travel, often accounts for most of an event's carbon emissions, many brands focus their sustainability efforts there. For example, brands can partner with reputable carbon offset providers, such as Terrapass and Gold Standard, to offset air travel.
Organizations can also choose venues close to train stations and incentivize public transportation to minimize ground emissions. For instance, they might partner with public transit authorities and carpooling services to offer discounts or free passes. Additionally, some brands have shifted away from private transportation for certain attendees, such as executive teams.
Erin Mills
"We've really moved away from black car service or private transportation for a number of our event attendees … and we're moving to more of a ride share approach," said Erin Mills, CEO at Strat House, a B2B event marketing agency.
In addition to reducing an event's carbon footprint, carpooling can also offer teams a chance to bond, according to Erin Mills.
"We will maybe stop for lunch to have a picnic somewhere. And so not only are we saving costs and carbon footprint, but we're also just creating more connection," Erin Mills said.
2. Go virtual or hybrid
Virtual gatherings create far less environmental harm than in-person events because they reduce the need for travel, shipping and catering, which are major sources of emissions and waste at traditional events. Organizations can also offer hybrid events, which let distant and more environmentally conscious audiences participate remotely.
In-person events can offer a sense of connection and engagement that virtual experiences lack, but due to their environmental effects, brands might only choose this option if it aligns with their business goals. For instance, in-person events might be necessary for brands that want to focus on networking, but a webinar strategy might work just as well to increase brand authority.
"Make sure that if you're going to consume resources that you're not doing things that could be accomplished online. … It's the old adage, 'that meeting could have been an email,'" Erin Mills said.
3. Choose venues with sustainability certifications
Some event venues, such as Disney's Swan and Dolphin hotels and Excel London convention center, have earned sustainability certifications from reputable organizations like Leadership in Engineering and Environmental Design (LEED) and ISO. Venues with these certifications follow environmental best practices in terms of energy efficiency, water conservation and material use.
In the pre-planning stage, event teams can make a list of potential certified venues at which to host their event.
4. Use digital collateral
Physical collateral, such as pamphlets, flyers and brochures, often ends up in the trash or on the ground. Instead, brands can use event apps and other digital mediums, like email and social media, to communicate with attendees. For instance, a brand hosting a conference might include an interactive map of the venue and a session planner on its event mobile app.
Ashleigh Cook
Additionally, brands can print QR codes on badges that link to each attendee's LinkedIn profile, said Ashleigh Cook, chief marketing officer at RainFocus, an event marketing platform. This strategy eliminates the need for physical business cards, which often end up on the floor at events.
5. Host small in-person events
Due to increased inflation following the COVID-19 pandemic, many marketing and event teams have smaller budgets than in the past. This constraint caused many organizations to embrace small, in-person events with 200 attendees or fewer.
"A trend we've seen outside of sustainability is the move away from tier one events to smaller, more local, more targeted events, which actually helps massively when it comes to environmental impact," Conrad Mills said.
These events draw local audiences, which can significantly reduce emissions from air travel. Additionally, they generate less food and collateral waste due to their smaller size.
Conrad Mills
6. Offer more sustainable swag
Most brands offer swag -- free promotional gifts -- for event attendees because it can increase brand awareness, improve CX and help marketers start conversations with leads. However, customers have increasingly begun to expect environmentally sustainable swag, Conrad Mills said.
For example, organizations should avoid poor quality plastic items, such as plastic keychains and disposable pens, because they often end up in trash bins. Instead, brands might consider biodegradable items, such as cotton tote bags and clothing.
Additionally, brands can offer digital swag, such as e-gift cards, discounts and e-books, to eliminate physical waste entirely.
7. Embrace a circular economy
Organizations that embrace a circular economy -- a production model that centers around reuse, waste avoidance and recycling -- can create more sustainable events compared to those that simply focus on post-event recycling. For instance, brands that create stands for conventions or trade shows can partner with local businesses to repurpose their materials.
"I've seen this from quite a few organizations where, rather than thinking about how to recycle the stands post-event, they've actually identified a local farm pre-event, and they partnered with the farm so that their stand could be repurposed as a shelter for cows," Conrad Mills said.
8. Source local vendors
Sourcing local vendors for materials and services, such as swag and catering, might cost organizations more, but it also lowers shipping-related emissions and helps local communities. Additionally, these vendors can offer more customized swag than large vendors.
"We did an event recently with one of our large tech clients, and it was a company retreat, and we were able to customize almost everything. Even their journals they were writing in were locally sourced vegan leather that were made by a local artisan, and their names were inscribed on each cover," Erin Mills said.
9. Offer more sustainable catering
Events notoriously generate a lot of food waste, because organizers often fear not having enough and order too much. Instead of large banquet orders of pre-prepared meals, organizations can offer live food stations, where chefs or attendants prepare fresh, customized dishes to order, according to Erin Mills.
"It might take a little longer to prepare the food, and you have to plan for that, but it's providing a more custom experience for attendees, and it's also ensuring that we're cutting down on food waste, because we are making things to order," Erin Mills said.
Key takeaways
Events can benefit brands in various ways, such as improved lead generation, but they also have negative effects on the environment. To minimize these negative effects, organizations can embrace virtual events, smaller in-person gatherings and a circular economy mindset.
However, marketers must be transparent about their efforts, because exaggerated or false claims related to sustainability efforts can lead to accusations of greenwashing.
"Be very careful about extrapolating any type of definitive data about your efforts without appropriate fact checking … but also, don't be afraid to make a move," Erin Mills said.
Tim Murphy is associate site editor for TechTarget's Customer Experience and Content Management sites.
