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More than just a marketing catchphrase, the concept of creating environmentally sustainable events is only going to become more important as end-customers demand social responsibility from organisers. And while the Middle East has traditionally lagged behind in all things ‘green’, that may be starting to change.
Carbon emissions, environmental sustainability, eco-friendly. The ‘green’ movement loves its buzz words. But while event organisers and suppliers in the UK, Europe and North America have been lured by the marketing and jumped on the sustainability band-wagon, the Middle East has done little more than pay lip service to the concept. However, as local public demand for sustainable events catches up with the rest of the world, that will have to change.
“Dubai and similar regions will eventually have to play its part in the ‘green agenda’ as this subject is not going away – and if they are not willing to offer sustainable options, they may find that clients and delegates look elsewhere to hold their meetings and events,” says Vicky Pratt, senior sales and marketing and corporate social responsibility (CSR) executive of WorldEvents. “It is better to be ahead of the crowd than to lack behind.”
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Headquartered in the UK, WorldEvents is a corporate event management agency that last year organised over 330 events in 40 countries for over 33,000 attendees. Clients include Chanel, the UK’s NHS, Philips and Procter and Gamble. Pratt says the company first recognised the appetite for events with an environmental and social conscience five years ago, and have developed a concept of best practices for planning and delivering events that reflects this.
Beyond the more obvious strategies of using recycled paper and locally-sourced catering supplies, WorldEvents is championing the use of technology to increase its corporate events environmental friendliness.
“We introduced our delegate registration system, Agoralive, a couple of years ago, and have found that this online system not only makes it easier for delegates to register for an event, but also massively reduces that amount of printed materials we have to produce,” says Pratt.
Devices such as SpotMe are also useful tools in the quest to lower carbon emissions, by not only encouraging audience engagement but also dramatically reducing the amount of printed materials such as business cards, agendas, programmes and badges.
SpotMe is a hand-held device that allows users to electronically exchange business cards, view venue maps and exhibitor/attendee lists and locate attendees that the user should network with based on pre-selected criteria such as industry and position in the company. It can literally scan the 1,000 people attending, for example, and provide a list of 15 to 20 that are ideal networking partners.
Musically-challenged
Outside the realm of corporate events though, ‘going green’ becomes more of a challenge.
At Pink’s concert in Berlin earlier this year, the main transformer read 500A. At Eurovision 2010, Agreko reportedly provided 9MW of generation capacity. The Beijing Olympics had 140MW available for use.
When it comes to concert-style events, power is king, and generally negates most attempts to be sustainable.
Increased use of LED lighting in such shows are providing some reductions in energy required but Arcola Energy is taking things a step further with their HyLight fuel cell.
Driven by the team from the Arcola Theatre, the largest studio theatres in London, Arcola Energy brands itself as “a multi-disciplinary agent for sustainable innovation”.
Its main activities are commercially developing and retailing low carbon products, particularly fuel cells; and driving sustainability in the arts through the award-winning, not-for-profit project of Arcola Theatre, which includes the world’s first fuel cell powered studio.
The Theatre Arena at this year’s Latitude festival, used low energy lighting and hydrogen fuel cell power, supplied by Arcola and its partners, White Light, Selecon, ETC and PixelRange.
A mixture of LED and low power tungsten technologies lit the stage; cutting power consumption by over 70 per cent and a 5kW Gencore fuel cell, supplied by London Hydrogen Partnership in association with Logan Energy, powered the entire lighting rig. The fuel cell operates almost silently, producing nothing but electricity and clean water.
A small-scale example compared to major touring shows, but initiatives like this provide the blue-prints required for the way-forward.
“Latitude was a great opportunity to push the boundaries of fuel cell and low energy lighting technologies in a high-pressure, daylight environment. By powering the Theatre Arena we demonstrated these technologies, at close quarters, to 20 leading theatre companies and 25,000 festival-goers,” says Arcola’s executive director Dr Ben Todd.
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