Making your business event more sustainable

Arranging an event that meets sustainability goals might seem overwhelming. But small and manageable actions go a long way towards reducing our impact on the environment.

Sarah Healy from Venues Wellington shares how you can work with your venue to create and put in place sustainability strategies. These outcomes enable and empower delegates, partners, and the community alike to also contribute to sustainability.

Venues Wellington is part of EarthCheck, a leading global benchmarking and certification programme for sustainable travel and tourism. Venues Wellington has a bronze certification. The programme provides a framework to achieve decided outcomes for sustainable tourism and events.

Sustainability at Venues Wellington

Ways to create sustainable business events

Reducing carbon footprint

The events industry creates a significant number of emissions, both to and from events and between venues. Transport is one of the easiest ways to make your event more sustainable. It encourages your event attendees or delegates to play a role in this mission.

Holding an event in a city like Wellington which is walkable is a great way to start reducing your carbon footprint. Consider giving attendees alternative ways to get around while helping to offset the impact of travel. Make it easy for them to:

• use public transport or travel by bike
• use hybrid or electric vehicles and ride-share apps
• offset the carbon emissions from flying.

Finding a new home for waste

Talk to your venue provider to come up with a waste management plan that is clear and easy to follow. This is one of the best ways to reduce the amount of waste your event creates.

We’ve installed water fountains and don’t provide cups anymore. In 2019 more than 11 tonnes of single-use cups went to landfill from our venues. Now we encourage delegates to bring reusable bottles.

Reducing event waste and ensuring good recycling practices happen across all our venues. Venues Wellington is diverting 70% of event waste from landfill, we work with the Sustainability Trust to do this.

Throughout our venues, we separate the following waste streams:

• recycling – paper, cardboard, aluminium cans, plastic grades 1, 2 and 5 only
• organics – food scraps and certified food packaging.

Selecting sustainable event partners

Having sustainable partnerships is a key part of achieving a more sustainable event.

Venues Wellington works with local suppliers committed to reducing their environmental impacts of waste, water and energy. One local organisation is Kaibosh, a food rescue organisation that redistributes food to people in need.

Partnering with organisations that focus on sustainability:

• helps you and your delegates to make a lasting difference
• ensures supply chains have responsible social and environmental practices where possible
• ensures they are as committed to giving back to the community.