Sustainable Events: Ideas and Planning for Companies

The quick version

A sustainable event plans for its impact on the environment, on people and on the budget, then measures it. The international standard for this is ISO 20121, published in June 2012 after the London Olympics team pushed for it.

Most of the impact comes from a few decisions made early: where the event is, how guests get there, what they eat and what gets thrown away after. Get those right and the small things (lanyards, paper cups) matter less.

What makes an event sustainable

Recycling bins alone don't make an event sustainable. You need a goal, a plan and a number at the end.

ISO 20121 looks at three kinds of impact: environmental, social and economic. The environmental side is energy, water, waste and transport. The social side covers accessibility, fair labor and the local community. The economic side asks whether the event spends money where it does the most good.

You don't need certification to plan this way. You need one person who owns the plan and a short list of targets you can count.

Standards worth knowing

Know these two standards before a client or venue asks about sustainability.

• ISO 20121. A management system for events: you set a policy, find your impacts, plan, act and review. A venue in the UK that used it reported savings of about 15% through better waste and electricity management.
• EIC Sustainable Event Standards. Eight standards from the Events Industry Council, for events and for suppliers such as venues, caterers and AV companies. They replaced the older APEX/ASTM Environmentally Sustainable Meeting Standards and use third-party audits.

Ask your venue and caterer if they're certified to either. If not, ask what they measure.

Sustainable event planning step by step

Sustainable event planning works best as a short checklist you start before you sign a venue.

1. Set two or three targets. For example: less landfill waste than last year, no single-use plastic bottles, local food for the main meal.
2. Pick one owner. One person checks every vendor against the targets.
3. Choose the venue for its location and systems. Transit access, recycling and compost service, water stations.
4. Plan guest travel. Fewer flights, shared shuttles, a date that avoids a second trip.
5. Order food by headcount. Confirm numbers late and plan where leftovers go.
6. Cut single-use items. Digital agendas, reusable signage, no plastic giveaways.
7. Measure and report. Waste by weight, travel miles, attendance, survey results.

Venue and travel

Flights and long drives add up fast for a national meeting, so the location decides more than any single choice on site. A venue near most of your guests, or near an airport with direct flights, cuts the miles before you do anything else.

Ask the venue what it already does: recycling and compost, energy use, water refill stations, donation partners for leftover food. A good venue sourcing brief puts these questions in the first email, next to capacity and dates.

For multi-day events, keep everything in one place: sleeping rooms, meetings and dinners. Every shuttle between a hotel and an offsite venue adds fuel and time.

Food and drinks

Food waste is the part guests notice and the easiest one to fix. The EPA's Food Recovery Hierarchy sets the order: first make less extra food, then donate what's safe to people, then send scraps to animals, compost or energy recovery. The landfill comes last.

In practice, that means a headcount confirmed close to the date, plated or stationed meals sized for the actual group and a donation plan agreed with the caterer in advance. Local and seasonal menus cut transport and taste better. We confirm the headcount and timing with you early, so your caterer can size portions before the menu is final.

Materials, decor and swag

Most event materials are used for one day. Choose things that can come back next year or go somewhere useful.

• Signage. Print undated signs you can reuse, or use screens.
• Badges and lanyards. Collect them at the exit and reuse them.
• Decor. Rent instead of buying, and avoid materials that can only go to landfill.
• Swag. Give fewer, better items, or let guests choose a donation instead.
• Printing. Put the agenda in an app or on a page with a QR code.

Entertainment and AV

Entertainment is easy to forget in a sustainability plan, and it's where a lot of single-use builds happen. A custom set or a photo backdrop built for one evening usually goes in the dumpster the next morning.

Rented interactive equipment works the other way. Our simulators, VR stations and photo booths go back to the warehouse and out to the next event. One team brings them, sets them up, runs them and takes them away. We have two bases, one on each coast: Los Angeles and Orlando, where our office and warehouse sit at 310 N Orange Ave. That shortens the trip for most of the country.

Photo activities can skip paper too. Our AI photo booth shares photos digitally, so prints become an option, not the default. Sound works the same way. For the five stations at Capital Group's summer social, one AV setup with four QSC speakers carried music and announcements for the whole space.

Measure and report

A sustainability plan without numbers is a promise. Decide what you'll count before the event, and ask each vendor to send their part.

Useful numbers for a corporate event: waste by type and weight, share of guests who flew, food donated, single-use items avoided. Compare them with your last event, not with a perfect one. Share the results with guests in the follow-up email, along with one thing you'll change next time.