Environmental Sustainability Policy

  1. Purpose

The purpose of this Environmental Sustainability Policy is to outline our commitment to reducing Greenhouse Gas emissions (hereafter referred to as GHGs, emissions or CO2e) and reducing our waste footprint, within our organisation, and in the events we deliver.

This policy focuses on environmental sustainability, rather than attempting to also address financial and social sustainability. These highly important, and interlinked, elements form part of our wider business strategy and shareholder / stakeholder reporting, and are also addressed in our vision and values.

We will communicate this policy to all our stakeholders, including clients, suppliers and staff. We will do this to enable them to work with us in achieving our ambitions in this important area.

We recognise that the environmental impacts from our operations and events mostly derive from emissions from fuel usage and waste from single-use items.

We therefore hope to increase environmental awareness across our organisation with this policy and embed carbon reduction and zero-waste practices in our everyday business.

 

  1. Statement of Intent

   2.1       Net-zero Goals

Our aim as a responsible business is to create a future fit for everyone. We therefore publicly support a 1.5°C future and are aligning our climate mitigation targets to reach Net Zero Global emissions by 2050 at the latest across our company operations.

We aim to reduce event emissions from activities we deliver and contract, in line with a 1.5°C pathway.

2.2       The Circular Economy

In addition, we are committed to becoming a Circular Economy business. This means we will reduce waste across all company owned operations with a view to diverting 90% from landfill and incineration. We are also committed to running “Circular Events” across all event deliveries. This means we will divert 90% from landfill and incineration.

2.3       Monitoring and Reporting

We commit to monitor, review and report on our progress on an annual basis and use the ongoing learnings to inform our approach to reducing emissions and waste across our operational and event activities.

 

  1. Our Commitments

We are committed to responsible environmental operations and event planning and as such commit to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and waste across both our operational activities and our event deliveries. In order to achieve this, we are committed to:

  • Halving our greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 across all company owned operations. To do this we will set our baseline year as 2024 and set a year-on-year reduction target of 10%.
  • Achieving Net Zero emissions well before 2050 and as soon as possible
  • Disclosing our progress on a yearly basis
  • Integrating positive climate activity in business strategy
  • Measuring greenhouse gas emissions for event deliveries from January 2024 2023 and carbon balancing these emissions.
  • Achieving Net Zero events well before 2050 and as soon as possible.
  • Reducing waste across all event deliveries with a view to operating Circular Events by 2035.

 

  1. Achieving our aims

We will work to deliver our commitments by:

4.1       At a company level:

  • Procurement:
  • Requesting that our suppliers commit to reducing their emissions and requesting evidence of this in our procurement / tender process.
  • Suppliers will be reviewed on both cost and environmental performance when making appointments.
  • Energy
    • Enabling employees to work from home, to reduce emission costs.
    • Educating and influencing our working from home employees to reduce energy usage.
  • Travel and Transport
    • Company owned cars – all electric
    • Actively promoting lower impact travel options for staff travel.
    • Measuring our annual emissions from staff travel for meetings and events, and for company transport.
    • Implementing a travel pre-assessment for all flights to review necessity before approving travel spend.
    • Communicating to staff that business travel should be undertaken by low-emitting transport wherever this can be done in less than a business day. This includes C-Suite travel.
    • Implementing a work from home policy to reduce the need for staff to commute.
  • Food and Drinks

Offering a 50/50 split for plant-based options in our internal and external staff and parties. At least 50% of beverages will be plant-based. Purchase histories and menus will be audited on a annual basis to review our progress

 

  • Waste
    • WFH – waste policy

4.2       At event delivery:

  • General
    • Reducing emissions associated with services we are contracted to deliver as far as possible, starting from the beginning of the project.
    • Measuring the emissions associated with every event from:
      • all staff travel and event transport
      • catering for staff and audience
      • energy used on-site
      • and encouraging / supporting our clients to collect audience travel data to produce a post-event report with emission reduction suggestions for future events.
    • Include offsetting recommendation in every event budget. Clients may opt-out
  • Energy
    • Reducing emissions associated with electricity, gas and fuel usage from services we are contracted to deliver as far as possible, starting from the beginning of the project.
    • Measuring electricity, gas and other fuel usage across every event we deliver.
    • Writing a Sustainable Energy Event Plan for every event to detail our mitigation methods across energy, gas and other fuel usage.
    • Requesting evidence of energy reductions and / or efficiencies as well as evidence of commitments to reducing emissions as part of our venue procurement processes.
      • Suppliers will be reviewed on both cost and environmental performance when making appointments.
  • Travel and Transport
    • Ensuring all event associated Travel and Transport emissions resulting from staff travel and from services we have contracted are reduced as far as possible. This process will start from the beginning of each
    • Writing a Sustainable Travel and Transport Event Plan to detail our mitigation methods across this remit.
    • Measuring emissions from:
      • staff pre-production travel (i.e. site visits).
      • staff and crew travel to and from site.
      • transport emissions from company owned vehicles relating to this event.
      • transport emissions from services we have contracted for each event (i.e. trucks and couriers).
      • supporting clients to / measuring at least 50% of audience travel to extrapolate emission data.
    • Procuring suppliers that can evidence ultra-low emissions vehicle fleets or can evidence commitment to moving towards an ultra-low emissions vehicle fleet wherever possible.
  • Catering
    • Writing a Sustainable Catering Event Plan for every event to detail our mitigation methods across this remit.
    • Designing and proposing 50% vegetarian menus as standard.
    • Where clients request beef or lamb in menus, we will always propose a red-meat free menus and explain the rationale.
    • Where clients request meat and dairy in menus, encourage the produce to be locally and ethically reared and free range organic / pasture fed*.

*There is a difference between grass fed and pasture fed, with pasture fed being optimum.

  • Where red meat free is not regionally or culturally possible we will encourage for produce to be sourced from within 100 miles
  • Working collaboratively with relevant contracted parties in the menu design and concept stage before proposals are shared with the end client for review.
  • Setting targets on each event to reduce the number of miles travelled by produce to ensure food is locally produced and requesting menus do not feature out of season produce.

 

  • Production
    • Writing a Sustainable Production Event Plan for every event to detail our mitigation methods across this remit.
    • Hiring as many assets as possible, such as furniture and decor, even when purchase may be cheaper, unless these items have a designated post-event life.
    • Where hiring is not feasible, we will:
      • design assets with the and the Circular Economy in mind to reduce potential waste generation.
      • design items with the objectives of reducing the volume of waste created in the production stage.
      • Reduce the quantity of raw materials used.
      • Prioritise the use of materials confirmed as easily recycled with our waste contractor or venue where assets will not have a life post-event.
      • Prioritise sustainably sourced materials e.g. renewable or recycled sources.
      • Increase our roster of suppliers who offer a take-back recycling scheme.
      • Donate assets after the event to charities or community groups in the local area for reuse, only are ensuring it is of good quality and is of use to these groups.
    • We will only use biodegradable or compostable materials when it has been confirmed there is a waste collection stream available for them and that they are being correctly managed. Where we cannot confirm this management, we will opt for traditional materials that we can ensure will be recycled.
    • Ensuring a segregated waste stream onsite which includes bins for coffee cups and food waste for all events for which we are responsible for catering.
  1. Monitoring and Improvement

We will monitor our performance against our objectives on an annual basis.

We are committed to analysing where targets have not been met to enable us to overcome these barriers more effectively in the future.

Where targets have been met or exceeded we will celebrate this success and set higher targets for the following year, stretching our ambitions to deliver overall Net Zero.

We will review this policy on an annual basis and update targets, objectives and information as appropriate.

 

  1. Accountability Culture

Achieving our objectives involves engaging our teams to support our organisational ambitions, and planning from the start of projects is required for all event deliveries. We recognise that adhering to this Policy requires every member of our team to play their part and that they delivery of this policy falls into the remit of all employees.

We will therefore promote a shared accountability culture within our organisation, ensuring all team members work together to incorporate these sustainability goals into their day-to-day work routines and planning.

This will be achieved through training for staff, embedding these objectives into our internal operational processes and engaging staff in the development of future objectives.

 

This policy has been approved & authorised by:

Name:             Lucy Francis

Position:        Company Director