Practical solutions for green events
akaryon, as a provider of solutions for sustainable event management, participated in a workshop on “Sustainable Large Events” at the Climate Lab Spittelau in Vienna on May 15th and 16th, 2024. The event was organised by Michael Jayasekara, founder and Managing Director of vionmo, a company that advises stakeholders in the tourism and leisure industry on sustainability issues.
Day 1’s agenda included masterclasses on green procurement, CO2 & mobility, greenwashing, and certification. Organizers of large events, sponsors, and sustainability managers were involved. Priorities were derived from the addressed topics to be discussed on Day 2 with representatives from authorities.
Hot topics: feasibility, legal assurance, and funding
An essential topic on day 1 was dealing with advertising sustainability: The Green Claims Directive against greenwashing and the Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive provide a framework here. Organisers want to ensure that their explicit environmental statements are legally sound.
To be able to provide evidence of the legality of green campaigns, transparency and quality in the exchange of sustainability data in the value chain are important – keyword Product Carbon Footprint. Not only to comply with legal requirements but also to obtain certifications that are important for sponsorship, transparent and efficiently organized data flow is relevant.
Obtaining certificates is time and personnel-intensive. For example, there is the Environmental Label 62 for Green Meetings & Green Events, the ÖNORM ISO 20121 for Sustainable Event Management, or the EMAS Eco Management and Audit Scheme. Therefore, financing and funding opportunities were also discussed.
Perspectives: Network of major event organizers and stronger regional integration
On day 2, stakeholders from the following institutions, among others, joined the workshop group: Federal Ministry for Climate Action, Environment, Energy, Mobility, Innovation and Technology; Federal Ministry for Labour and Economy, Tourism Section; Province of Styria; klima:aktiv mobil; and the Austrian Energy Agency.
The priorities discussed included
- the establishment of an Austrian network of large event organizers to better address challenges together and form advocacy towards political decision-makers
- and strengthening regional collaborations – especially the exchange with public transport associations, considering that mobility contributes significantly to the CO2 footprint of an event, as well as with catering companies.
In these fields of activity, workshop participants also reflected on potential future steps.
In the area of solutions for the sustainable management of large events, akaryon offers support in the creation of sustainability reports, among other things: For example, the sustainability report for AIRPOWER22, Europe’s largest air show, was created. akaryon’s tool ESG Cockpit was also used for this.
And, the d&b SustainSymphony ESG portal was recently launched, a sustainability data management solution for event stakeholders along the entire value chain – for event organizers as well as suppliers, commissioned by d&b solutions GmbH & Co. KG.