Sustainable Management Practices Involved in Event Planning

Various categories of events are planned with the aim and objective of achieving a specific purpose either by an organization, a corporation or an individual. According to (Morelli, 2011), sustainability is the maintenance of natural capital socially, economically and environmentally to attain our needs without compromising the needs of future generations. Creating an event with sustainable practices is very essential in ensuring the environmental, economic and health effects are not detrimental and harmful. Incorporating sustainable practices into event planning and delivery will focus especially in having concerns for social issues, economic and environmental issues regardless of the objectives of the event (Richards, 2012).

Some of the sustainable management practices involved with event planning would include; the planning, decision making, organization participation and implementation of an event in a very socially and environmentally responsible manner. According to (Commission, Ohio, & Agency, 2014), sustainable event development, planning and delivery involves various levels or sections and team members that will make it achieve its goals. These sections may include;

This is the section that is responsible for the making of decisions, hosting and planning for the event. A proper team will be very successful in ensuring the decisions made are good and incorporate sustainable practices for the whole event.

The venue management has the obligation of providing a good place where the event shall be hosted and facilitate the execution of the decisions made by the event planning team. The venue vendors include those organizations and businesses that provide services that may be needed in the event by those attending. The services and products they will provide will depend on the type of event, the objectives, the time frame and the number of people attending. Both venue management and vendors should be worked with closely by the event planning team to ensure that sustainable practices are incorporated in the event.

Exhibitors and hospitality sections will mainly cater for services like lodging, specific transportation services and commercial food services. Exhibitors mainly focus in promoting their businesses in a specific designated place in the event.  

According to (Richards, 2012), the impact on environment by events and the number of people who attend such events have resulted to the concerns for incorporating a number of sustainable practices during these events planning and delivery. The author further illustrates that the event industry has a very special place in ensuring that events are planned and delivered when sustainable practices are incorporated in every step. (Richards, 2012) says that from the study conducted in California, many sustainable practices incorporated by event planners only reach a certain level of importance and hence do not fully exploit their potential in using sustainable practices in the events they plan.  The events happening worldwide with the growing demand for planned events may have a negative impact on the environment if not planned with sustainable practices in mind.

Importance of Incorporating Sustainable Practices in Event Planning and Delivery

Sustainability in events planning and delivery can have a positive effect to the environment even if the changes made are small at a time. The growth of demands on sustainability in events planning and delivery has tremendously been influenced by the growth in concern in having and maintaining a healthy environment.

According to (Solutions, 2015), a lot of positive effects can be realized by event planners through the incorporation of sustainable practices or green initiatives through the range of easy to implement small scale practices like turning of taps or lights when not in use to bigger practices like using alternative sources of power rather than those that produce carbon. (Annette, 2009) illustrates that concerns on sustainability have been raised a notch higher by the ever increasing concerns by the unintended economic, social and environmental consequences. These consequences have been caused by economic growth, population growth and the increased consumption of the natural resources.

A questionnaire that inspires the learner to think and reflect on Sustainable practices in event planning and delivery

• What is the cost needed to make successful sustainable event?
• How long will can it take for an event to attain sustainability?
• How will the changes made in the event planning is of benefit to the environment?
• What changes should be implemented to make an event plan to be sustainable in the environment?
• What steps should a learner undertake to ensure that event planning and delivery is green?
• As a learner how will you know if an event has achieved the goals that were set?
• As a learner, what is the worst or challenging thing about the sustainable events?
• As a learner, what are the major importance of having a sustainable event planning and delivery?

A number of practices have been outlined by event planners to ensure they achieve sustainability in all the events planned and carried out. According to Annette (2009), sustainable practices in event planning and management involves putting efforts that aim at minimizing negative impacts and ecological footprints to the communities and stakeholders involved in an event. (Annette, 2009) illustrates that the practices should meet the standards developed by the United Kingdom in 2007, that was named; The British Standard for Sustainable Event Management (BS 8901). The standard enables event planners work towards achieving sustainability. Some of the sustainable practices are based on three categorical phases including:

In this phase, high level goals are set, commitment upfront established and a sustainable policy specific for the event created.

The supply chain process and procedure is effectively managed, and the agreed objectives implemented, all towards achieving a common goal. All the planning and procedures are tracked to ensure they happen as planned and any issues that may arise are addresses accordingly (Commission, Ohio, & Agency, 2014). All these should be done with the goal of achieving sustainability.

All the activities, procedures and objectives that were implemented in the event are reviewed and measured to find out the ones achieved, and those that failed, including those that needed improvement in relation to specified attention in future events.  When the three phases are implemented properly, then critical success factors will be enhanced and will lead towards achieving the focus on sustainability and the benefits that come with it (Morelli, 2011). Sustainable practices for events are based on the fact that for sustainability to be achieved, then the principle of survival is on either direct or indirect dependency on natural resources. The advantages of focusing on incorporating sustainability practices in planning, management and delivery of events, as illustrated by (Derrett, 2004), include the following;

Three Categorical Phases of Sustainable Practices in Event Planning and Delivery

Sustainable practices are cost effective.  Better usage of natural resources like water and energy will result in reduction of capital and maintenance costs for the event; Uniqueness can be achieved through the incorporation of specific features in the event planning and differentiate with any event that may be held concurrently around the same areas; Negativity that has always been associated with events can be solved when sustainability practices are incorporated in event planning and delivery for both long distance and short distance events; Reputations and relationships between stakeholders and event participants are enabled since the opportunity provided by the planning and implementation of an event involves personal/face to face contacts (Musgrave, 2011).

It is very important for one to work out the impact that an event will have on the environment before even trying to improve things. It is important to know the impacts that the event is already having on the environment. A good example is management of transport and power consumption.

It is important to have a better plan when holding an event management. Failing to properly plan may lead to the failure of the whole event in meeting its desired goals. It is important to set very realistic goals that can be improved each and every year.

There is no doubt that delegation of some work to your project management team can actually end up lightening your work as the project manager however, delegating this work to the contractors will result into the freeing up of the whole project management team. The good thing about the contractors is that they will tend to think out of the box with the main aim of out doing their other competitors. It is important to tell the contractor that you intend to reduce environmental impact of the event.

Sometimes incorporating Sustainable practices in the planning for events may have some disadvantages especially to corporations that are involved in the planning, delivery or management of the events. According to (Wagen, 2010), some of the disadvantages of going green for corporations include;

The initial costs of achieving sustainability can be very high for corporations that are going green for the first time. Activities like installation of solar panels and other upfront conversion costs are high and discourage many.

Products for consumers that are provided by corporations may end up being very expensive for consumers since the corporations also work towards creating value while maintaining their profit levels.

Advantages of Focusing on Incorporating Sustainability Practices

Companies, organizations and individual/private businesses that wish to achieve sustainability in their practices sometimes face lack of support and entrenched bias in the process of obtaining certification regarding energy saving implementation measures.  

Companies that would lay false claims on how their products and services are friendly to the environment would suffer and get a lot of harm to its credibility in the market once customers know they were cheated.

Elimination or minimizing the use of papers in organizations and companies will then lead to relying on computers and desktops for storing information and data management (Wagen, 2010). Potential threats and vulnerabilities like theft and hacking may result in data and information falling on unauthorized people putting the business at risk (Presbury & Edwards, 2005).  System crash and poor management of data by less skilled employees and staff may result in data loss incase no backup was created.

Events and sustainability are related in such a manner that events are capable of producing vast amounts of wastes, uses natural resources and even send out emissions regardless of the objective of the event (Shah, 2008). The planning of the event will therefore be dependent on the decisions made during the three phases of incorporating sustainable practices as highlighted by (Quinn, 2009). These decisions will have effects on sustainability depending on the chosen caterers, facilities, suppliers, attendees and even sponsors experiences in the event. Hospitality, food and water management, waste management and energy conservation form some of the important factors focused on in sustainable practices in planning and delivery of events.

It is a company that acts as an entertainment centre. The company is committed in reducing its footprint in the environment. The company operates its venue through AEG Ogden and AEG 1 EARTH environmental program. These environmental programs help the entertainment company to quantify and measure the main effects of AEG Ogden operations. The programs also help the entertainment company to provide tools and identify some major goals to guide it in the making of important decisions hence improving its environmental performance. The company tracks its monthly progress through the use of AEG Ecometricks hence giving it the capability to measure its generated waste and the resources that have been consumed. Brisbane as an entertainment company has taken the opportunity of raising environmental awareness among its guests and its staff.

Some of the useful resources students can use are the online sites that provide guidance on how to plan for events that are much more sustainable to the environment. These sites are specially made for the event planners who want sustainable even guidance.

Conclusion

In conclusion, sustainable management practices and development incorporated in event management involves principles and practices in all phases of event organization with the objective of achieving responsibility. It works best when the initial stages of planning have the objectives of achieving a green event. The inception, decision making, tracking, management, execution and delivery of the event will involve sustainable practices if all stakeholders, clients, key players, suppliers, venue exhibitors, contactors and organizers are involved in various stages of the plan. 

References

Annette, J. (2009). Sustainable Event Management. Retrieved from www.greensense.com.au 

Classic venue solutions. (2015). Going Green: 5 Best Practice Sustainable Events. Retrieved from www.classicvenuesolutions.com

Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission-MORPC, Solid Waste Authority of Central Ohio-SWACO and Environmental Protection Agency-EPA (2014). Sustainable Events: Ideas for Environmentally Friendly Practices into Meetings and Events

 Morelli, J. (2011). Environmental Sustainability: A Definition for Environmental Professionals. Rochester Institute of Technology.

Richards C. (2012). Sustainability Practices for Special Events on the Central coast Of California.

Musgrave, J. (2011). Moving towards responsible events management. Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes, 3(3), 258-274.

Shah, S. (2008). Sustainable practice for the facilities manager. John Wiley & Sons.

Derrett, R. (2004). Festivals, events and the destination. Festival and Events Management, 32-50.

Presbury, R., & Edwards, D. C. (2005). Incorporating sustainability in meetings and event management education. International Journal of Event Management Research.

Jones, M. (2014). Sustainable event management: A practical guide. Routledge.

Van der Wagen, L. (2010). Event management. Pearson Higher Education AU.

Quinn, B. (2009). Festivals, events and tourism. Books/Book chapters, 1.