Sustainable Events

As a number of our clients are aware, a new sustainability event standard, BS 8901, was launched with the Olympics in mind.  The standard was subject to a trial period where it was tested by ten organisations between September 2008 and March 2009. As recently announced in Business Standards, the BSi magazine, Amanda Barnes, the chief executive of one of the pilot event companies, Faversham House, said “having a framework with which to measure progress was invaluable… the standard helped us ensure we applied everything in a systematic way… BS8901 has given us a blueprint and a template with which to run our events”.  As a result, Faversham House was able to both reduce costs and simplify life for its exhibitors. Many organisations may be close to achieving the standard but not have the formality of some of the systems that the standard requires.    Mark Woods of Statius commented “Given the increasing emphasis on environmental issues, the trick with this standard is to ensure that organisations going for 8901 also address the social and economic issues required for a fully sustainable operation.”