Environmental Sustainability Policy 

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. 

 

As a company that is built on environmental sustainability values, this policy focuses on environmental sustainability only, rather than attempting to also address financial and social sustainability. These highly important and interlinked elements form part of our wider business strategy and are also addressed in our vision and values.

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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.

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

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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.

 

Statement of Intent

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 also recognise that most of our event activities are Scope 3 as they are contracted services. Therefore, we commit to measuring emissions from event activities across energy, travel and transport, catering and production.

 

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

 

We will mitigate both our operational emissions and event delivery emissions by offsetting these with an accredited carbon offsetting partner.
 

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. 

 

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. 

 

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:

 

Company Level

• Pledging to the UNFCCC Race to Zero

• Halving our greenhouse gas emissions within five years and well before 2030 across all company owned operations. To do this we will set 2023 as our baseline year and set a yearly reduction target of at least 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

 

Event Deliveries

• Measuring greenhouse gas emissions for all event deliveries from January 2023 and carbon balancing these emissions when possible.

• Reducing carbon emissions across our event deliveries as far as possible and by at least 10% year on year, incorporating company growth to respectively adjust targets.

• 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 before 2030.

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What is Net-Zero and the Circular Economy?

 

Net Zero

The term Net Zero is often interchanged with Carbon Neutrality, but there is a subtle difference. 

 

Carbon Neutrality refers to carbon ‘offsetting’ or ‘balancing’ emissions resulting from an activity. This has the effect of, on paper, “neutralising” the emissions created.

 

Net Zero first reduces emissions from an activity as far as possible before carbon balancing. This means that emissions are first reduced and then offset. The ambition is to achieve a 1.5C future.

 

In order to claim Net Zero emissions, emissions must first be reduced, in line with global targets, before being balanced. If carbon emissions are balanced before being reduced, these cannot be constituted as Net Zero. 

 

It is essential that the entire globe reaches Net Zero carbon emissions as soon as possible to limit the global temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

 

A rise of just 2 degrees has catastrophic impacts for life on this planet, including humans, and may be irreversible. We are currently on trajectory for a 3-4 degree rise so actions must be taken quickly. 

 

The UK has now set in law to cut emissions by 78% by 2035, and to Net Zero by 2050. We wish to accelerate this transition in line with broader global ambitions to reach Net Zero as soon as possible. 

 

The Circular Economy (CE)

The CE is a system aimed at eliminating waste and ensuring the continual use of resources.

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The practice prioritises redesigning products and processes to reduce and eliminate waste. This is followed by reuse and repurposing of existing products or assets, before looking at alternative ways of using or processing products - like refurbishing. 

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This is the same approach as the Zero Waste Hierarchy which supports the Circular Economy. Recycling comes quite low in the Zero Waste Hierarchy due to the energy intensive processes required.

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We prefer the term Circular Economy to Zero Waste as “Zero Waste” is often confused with “Zero Waste to Landfill”. These are two different concepts. The first is a practice that reduces and eliminates waste and the latter means that waste is diverted from landfill and is incinerated for energy instead. This practice is known as Waste to Energy and emits considerable carbon emissions and threatens the transition to a waste-free society.  

 

Achieving status as a Zero Waste business means that the business will be diverting 90% from landfill and incineration.

 

Achieving our aims

We will work to deliver our commitments by:

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Company Level

Procurement

• Requesting that our suppliers commit to reducing their emissions to remain on our roster. 

• Suppliers will be reviewed on both cost and environmental performance when making appointments.

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Energy

• Switching our energy tariff to a 100% renewable energy provider

• Optimising the use of building space in all operations and enabling employees to work from home, to reduce emission costs.

• Reducing non-renewable electricity and gas consumption by at least 10% year on year using 2023 as our baseline year until we have halved our emissions.

• Supporting our employees to switch to renewable energy in their homes.

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Travel & Transport

• Implementing a low emission policy requirement for owned and leased company cars and vans and ensuring that before 2030 at least 100% of our owned or leased vehicle fleet will be electric vehicles.

• Actively promoting lower impact travel options for staff travel with reward schemes in place. 

• Measuring our annual emissions from staff travel for meetings and events, and for company transport. Staff will be asked to keep a record of their travel to and from meetings and events to facilitate measurement.

• Implementing a travel pre-assessment for all flights to review necessity before approving travel spend.

• Encouraging train usage on journeys as and when possible

• Offsetting our measured emissions via a VCS or Gold Standard certified scheme.

• Implementing a work from home policy to reduce the need for staff to commute.

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Food & Drinks

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

• Diverting food waste from landfill and ensuring our office and facilities buildings have food composting bins and the relevant collection service.

• Monitoring the volume of food waste produced in our offices and aim to reduce this by providing education to our staff and teams on reducing food waste.

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Water

• Reducing water usage by at least 10% year on year using 2023 as our baseline year until we have halved our consumption.

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Waste

• Ensuring that we have segregated waste streams within all our buildings and facilities with separate waste streams for coffee cups and food waste and contractors to manage these. 

 

Event Deliveries

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 where possible from all services we contract including:

  • staff travel and event transport

  • catering for staff and audience

  • energy usage 

  • material choices for environmental builds

  • waste and recycling

  • and encouraging / supporting our clients to collect audience travel data

to produce a post-event report with emission reduction suggestions for future events.

• Including offsetting in every event budget. Clients may opt-out.

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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 where possible.

• 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. Venues that cannot evidence this will be de-prioritised in our venue proposals.

• Requesting evidence of energy reductions and / or efficiencies as well as evidence of commitments to reducing emissions as part of our supplier tender process. Suppliers will be reviewed on both cost and environmental performance when making appointments.

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Travel & 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 project. 

• Writing a Sustainable Travel and Transport Event Plan to detail our mitigation methods across this remit. We will write these for all domestic events over 50 people or for events that traditionally require air travel, regardless of number of delegates. 

• Measuring the emissions from travel and transport associated with each event where possible including:

  • 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).

  • emissions from audience travel, where managed by us or when approval is given for data to be collected

  • supporting clients to measure at least 50% of audience travel to extrapolate emission data.

       And offsetting these emissions via a VCS or Gold Standard certified scheme.

• Procuring suppliers that can evidence ultra-low emissions vehicle fleets or can evidence commitment to moving towards an ultra-low emissions vehicle fleet.

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Catering

• Writing a Sustainable Catering Event Plan for every event to detail our mitigation methods across this remit.

• Designing and proposing 50% plant-based menus as standard.

• Never pitching menus with beef or lamb. Where clients request beef or lamb in menus, we will always propose a red-meat free menus and explain the rationale.

• Working collaboratively with relevant contracted parties in the menu design and concept stage before proposals are shared with the end client for review.

• To actively reduce the number of miles travelled by produce to ensure food is locally produced and requesting menus do not feature out of season produce.

• Tracking and measuring onsite food surplus and waste associated with the catering choices. We will use this information to inform future decision-making processes regarding menu design.

• Any food surplus from events will be redistributed to food banks/local charities where possible.

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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 Circular Economy in mind to reduce potential waste generation.

  • we will design items to be easily disassembled and separated for component recovery.

  • we will design items with the objectives of reducing the volume of waste created in the production stage.

• Reducing the quantity of raw materials used.

• Prioritising the use of materials confirmed as easily recycled with our waste contractor or venue where assets will not have a life post-event.

• Prioritising sustainably sourced materials e.g. renewable or recycled sources.

• Increase our roster of suppliers who offer a take-back recycling scheme.

• Donating assets after the event to charities or community groups in the local area for reuse, only after 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 where possible, which includes bins for coffee cups and food waste for all events for which we are responsible for catering.

 

Monitoring and Improvement

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

 

Progress and Improvements

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.

 

Policy review

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

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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.

 

The below named persons take responsibility for coordinating the review of this policy, engaging all stakeholders in the process.