CSR or Corporate Social Responsibility – It’s the idea that a company should use their power and influence to give back to society and, in some cases, address some of the root causes of problems they themselves have created.
CSR impacts the way companies operate including the way they communicate and in particular – events. The events industry is large and global, it touches many aspects of our society from food production to tourism. It has a big role to play in shaping what kind of planet we will be living on tomorrow. That’s why CSR should matter to us as individuals, as event professionals and as an industry – it gives us the opportunity to look at ourselves critically and make changes where we can make a difference for good.
Why should the events industry have a conscience?
Anyone involved with event planning is aware of the huge infrastructure that an event requires. Whether it’s building new venues, using existing locations, flying in people and equipment or booking entertainment, the industry’s scale means that on some level we are all responsible for contributing to climate change.
Given our need to meet our carbon budgets through offsetting, it makes sense for us to take responsibility for our contribution towards climate change so we can ensure we are making changes where they will make a positive difference.
Clean events
A clean event is one that changes its impact over time, helping to build the future of the planet. The idea is to make events part of a long-term strategy for building sustainable communities by tackling the root causes of pollution, waste and climate change themselves.
With easing restrictions across the globe and businesses starting to operate as normal, the justification for jumping on a plane and travelling for events and meetings needs to be a balanced decision. Virtual events and meetings support the sustainability message and we foresee a rise in genuine debate and action amongst our clients and agencies trying to put sustainability at the core of their live events. And that’s not just a debate about air miles, but the whole supply chain and impact of live events from fabrication, design, staging, power usage, waste management, and digital delivery of the content too.
It’s time to get our house in order and put the lessons learnt about the impact of the global pandemic and climate change to good use.
At CODA we see it as a major responsibility of ours to help reduce the carbon impact of live events by:
- using energy efficient lighting,
- designing LED backdrops to change the meeting environment rather than using timber built staging solutions,
- using local suppliers to reduce transportation of equipment
- having a full time presence in all strategically important pharma hubs around the world
- We have a CODA hub already operational in Europe to offer virtual solutions to run alongside the ‘in person’ event
- wherever possible, adopt a paper-free approach
As part of our commitment to you, we will track and report the ways we have been able to increase the sustainability of each event we run.
We offer a virtual channel solution on every live event we run, not only to extend global communications reach but also save ‘air miles’ providing a considerable and calculable fuel saving.
Get in touch with us and see how we can bring your events to life and protect our planet.
