This week I had the pleasure to speak at the Associations World Congress in super sustainable Gothenburg. Gothenburg has been the leader of the Global Destination Sustainability Index for the last three years. As such it was a pleasure to deliver this presentation with Katarina Torstensson, who is the Director of Sustainability for Goteborg & CO – the DMO. 

It was great to see so many associations executives in our session. Frequently Associations have been behind the curve when it comes to sustainable events. But just like with other areas and sectors in 2019 we are seeing an increased response. 

La entrada Event Sustainability: Trends and Best practices se publicó primero en Less Conversation More Action.

Sadly, for most the answer is “yes” across the board.

As someone working in the sustainability space (and in sustainable development for the events industry no less!), I often find myself in discussions lamenting the silence and silencing of female voices on public forums. For events of any industry or field – be it academia, pharma, tech or even sustainability – it’s far more common to see men deliver key-note speeches or be part of a panel than women. In fact, it happens so often that there’s even a Tumblr account devoted to mocking this phenomenon.

While some claim that these scenarios reflect existing gender imbalances within certain fields and management positions overall (which in itself is deplorable), the fact of the matter is that the numbers still don’t quite add up. No matter how you cut it, current levels of female (in)visibility at conferences is neither representative of “the real world” or acceptable.

But why does gender-balance matter? To put it bluntly – what’s the value?

1. Women make us smarter. When we take steps to ensure the voices of women are heard in discussions the group’s collective intelligence rises, according to research by the Harvard Business Review. In experiments where teams were assigned a variety of challenging tasks, the teams made up of members with higher IQs didn’t perform the best – the teams with more women did. As the very purpose of panels is to address and showcase insight around certain challenges through discussion, the value of having women involved is clear.
2. Women encourage (meaningful) discussion. Homogenous groups are more confident in their decisions than diverse ones, but despite that confidence, homogenous groups are far more likely to arrive at wrong conclusions. In a nutshell, having women – and the diverse range of opinions, views and experiences they bring – on a panel encourages holistic discussions which are more robust and have more value. As very eloquently put by Simon Rothery, CEO, Goldman Sachs Australia – “conferences and panels provide a platform to share experiences and perspectives. When you limit the range of perspectives, you limit the quality of the conversation.”
3. Women protect and promote your brand. Improving diversity paints you, as the organiser or the brand you represent, as more progressive, forward-thinking, non-discriminatory, and a leader in your industry. On the flip side, a clearly gender-biased programme brings with it the threat of reputational damage. During the 15th International Congress of Quantum Chemistry for example, more than 1,500 scientists signed a petition at Change.org to boycott the event after it was unveiled that from a list of 29 conference speakers, chairs, and honorary chairs, none were women. In response, the conference committee came up with a new list of speakers that included six women, but that was too little too late – the damage was done. Similarly, during the 2016 World Economic Forum, “women” was the third-most tweeted topic (with more than 10,000 tweets) because only 23% of the speakers and moderators were women. What more, 20% of the panels — on topics as varied as energy, global debt, refugees, and the European financial outlook — were composed entirely of men.

Now that we’ve established the importance of striving for a more gender-balanced representation at conferences, the next hurdle is the «how». Here are a few practical tips to help you ensure diverse speakers and views are represented:

1. Don’t accept excuses. “It’s a male dominated field” and “the women speakers said no” are never good enough reasons for not having female representation on a panel. There is a plethora of resources available to help organizers find qualified, female speakers. For example, Women Also Know Stuff is a directory of scholars, particularly in foreign policy, you can tap into for reference. Seeking a tech, business or start-up investment speaker? Try exploring the Female Investors Opportunity: a collective created to connect female investors with speaking platforms. It may take some work, but it is certainly possible.  Of course, starting this research early is crucial as it minimizes the chance of falling back on your “default speakers,” who are more likely to be men.

2. Set goals and track them. Achieving gender balance at events is going to require deliberation, effort and emphasis. If you deem female representation and diversity at your event a priority, then set related goals for your conference and make them clear to your entire planning team. I would also consider making this commitment public through your marketing channels  as it will promote your diversity agenda (which may in turn attract greater diversity and build reputational value). An added bonus is that it’s also a good way to keep you and the event owners accountable to these goals.

3. Don’t take shortcuts. One of the worst things you can do is to make a commitment to diverse representation, only to place a token woman on stage as the moderator. Panels are asked for their opinions, insights and their expertise, while moderators facilitate the conversation. Both are important roles, but they’re not the same. Women can, and should, fill both seats.

The reality is this – if we continue to unquestioningly organise and participate in all-male panels, we will be doing ourselves, the events industry and society at large a huge disservice. Incorporating more diverse perspectives, including those of women, offers the best chance of encouraging the robust, thought-provoking discussions that are at the heart of the events industry.

As the gatekeepers to the stage, event professionals have the potential to create platforms which encourage meaningful dialogue built on the experiences of the many, rather than the few, and to shine a spotlight on the women – and men – whose insights may very well change the world.

The writer is Pranav Sethaputra, Group Sustainability Consultant at MCI – the world’s leading event management and association consultancy firm. Feel free to contact him at @PranavSTH or pranav.sethaputra@mci-group.com

La entrada Saying “No” to All-Male Panels: Why it Matters se publicó primero en Less Conversation More Action.

September 2015 marked an important development in the international community: the end of the Millennium Development Goals and the start of a new era with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs are known for having a more comprehensive set of development priorities, aspirations and targets than their earlier counterpart, aiming at being achieved by 2030.

It is truly remarkable how the SDGs and the concept of sustainability have gained so much traction across sectors at all levels, as they present a fertile ground for innovation and new business opportunities. Always looking to the future, we started our sustainability journey 10 years ago. With each passing day we align our People, Planet and Profit strategy with these 17 goals and turn to them for inspiration on how we could keep improving what we do, always aiming at upgrading the standard practices of the events industry. Helping shape tomorrow’s business and social opportunities for the entire industry is one of our key goals for the years to come.

Event management companies, with a wide array of business solutions, tend to work on the regular with governments, civil society and other businesses. In our case, we use our work to communicate and promote key sustainable event practices used to our clients for further supporting them in achieving these goals. As a first step, we have identified nine goals used frequently in our business, which can be adapted to positively influence their standard policies and daily operations:

Goal 3 – Good Health and Well-being: By inspiring talents and clients to live a more sustainable and healthier life at work and when attending events.

Goal 5 – Gender Equality: By treating this as a priority in our operations and by balancing the gender of speakers on the conference panels.

Goal 8 – Decent Work and Economic Growth: By always pushing for better work conditions & good ethics throughout the supply chain.

Goal 9 – Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure: By promoting innovation that aims at reducing environmental footprints and increasing social impact.

Goal 11 – Sustainable Cities and Communities: By taking the lead to challenge and support cities & governments to make their infrastructures and services more sustainable for the events they host. More information about this here.

Goal 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production: By continuing to use sustainable materials, recycle waste, renewable energy, local and organic food while reducing unnecessary consumption of resources on our events.

Goal 13 – Climate Action: By continuing to inspire our offices and events to use renewable energy, reduce energy usage, and offset their unavoidable impacts.

Goal 14 – Life below Water: By increasingly encouraging and supporting our suppliers to source the seafood and fish for our events from responsible sources.

Goal 15 – Life on Land: By working on ensuring that the signage, stage materials and branding that we use in our events comes from more sustainable sources.

However, to be able to do all of this we would need, as Elvis Presley used to say: “A little less conversation, a little more action please.”

To know more about our sustainability action, please visit our sustainability dedicated website and take a look at our annual sustainability report summary.

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By 2050, 70% of the world`s population of almost 10 billion people will live in cities. It is becoming increasingly critical for association executives to broaden their agendas to include strategies to help their organisation and its members become part of the ecosystem focused on creating more sustainable, healthy and prosperous cities.

Destinations Management Organisations and Convention Bureau can be key partners on this journey. However many associations are not leveraging the skills and resources available to them, while also failing to walk the talk of their values

Pioneering DMOs

A growing number of Destination Management Organisations (DMOs and CVBs) around the world have started to really understand that their role is not only to promote business tourism, but to be a key part of their cities economic social and environmental development strategy. As a key pillar of this strategy, leading DMOs are developing the capability to support visiting associations and corporates to achieve their sustainability goals.

So what are the leaders doing to make their destination a more sustainable partner for associations?

• Developing Sustainable Destination masterplans and roadmaps
• Creating an ecosystem with private and public partners to support local businesses, visitors and the community
• Building capacity of local suppliers through education, standards and knowledge sharing
• Providing and promoting financial incentives to help visiting organisations and local partners to implement more sustainable solutions.
• Communicating strategies, results and stories of progress
• Measuring, benchmarking and reporting on their sustainability performance

Opportunities for the event organiser

When planning for the next event, corporate and association executives needs to consider how their conference or congress can help them and their members to accelerate their organisations sustainability strategy. They need also need to think how to maximise the services provided by the DMO. Some keys steps include:

1. Content: Develop an event experience and program that promotes knowledge sharing, and co-creation of new sustainability solutions, processes and products
2. Think legacy: Consider what can be left in the city after the event. How can the event develop knowledge in the local community, build business, and catalyse social change. Think how event delegates can be engaged to support local community projects with their skills and muscles
3. Partnerships: Reach out to the DMO and ask them to facilitate introductions to key local players in the private, public and not for profit world
4. Make it competitive: Ask the DMO about the sustainability programmes of the city and its events industry. Include sustainability into the RFP and decision making progress. Assign 5-10% of the selection criteria to sustainability factors of the destination, and then shop around.
5. Walk the talk: Choose suppliers who have solutions that can help to reduce waste and carbon emissions, and use more sustainable and healthy materials to produce the event and feed your guests.

A helping hand

However it can be challenging for the event planner to find a “sustainable destination”. To simplify this task the Global Destination Sustainability Index was launched in March 2016. The GDS-Index is a collaborative business initiative created to help Destinations, Event Planners and Suppliers to benchmark the sustainability strategies and performanceof destinations and its’ meetings and events industry.

Today over 35 cities including Barcelona, Copenhagen, the Hague, Helsinki, Houston, Geneva, Gothenburg, Frankfurt, Nantes, Oslo, Reykjavik, Stockholm, Stuttgart, Sydney are in the process of benchmarking. The goal is to have 100 cities in 2017.

Smart corporations, associations and destinations are using sustainability as a competitive edge. It’s a way to differentiate, to attract customers and investment, to stimulate innovation, and recruit the best talent.

To discover how we can design a sustainable event that elevates your organisation, please contact us here.

About the author: Guy Bigwood is the MCI Group Sustainability Director, and leads MCI Sustainability Services. For the last ten years MCI have been consulting and advising on the development and implementation of sustainability strategies for association, destinations, corporations and governments.

La entrada How can Associations Work Better with Destinations to Drive Sustainability se publicó primero en Less Conversation More Action.

Last week we presented Part I of this two-part article: The Rising C’s of our Urban Future. Part I revealed the first four «C’s» as trending issues for destinations and cities of the future. Part II of this article discusses the last three: 

5. Citizen Involvement

The Smart City agenda until recently has been very technology-driven. Little attention has been paid to the citizen – the actual user of the city. But this is changing and this is happening fast.

In the new Barcelona Smart City strategy the focus is now on “making life better for people”, and has four key components to make Barcelona a more open, democratic, creative and circular city. The pioneering Barcelona Digital City plan is the city’s bold roadmap to drive technological sovereignty for citizens. It promotes a more diverse digital economy and a new urban innovation model by focusing on the transformation and digital innovation of the public sector through the greater involvement of companies, administrations, academia, communities and citizens.

The InterAmerican Development Bank in their new guidebook “The Road to Smart Cities” – state that people play a very important role as beneficiaries of and participants in city transformations. Their inclusion and engagement is key in the transition from traditional management models to a Smart City management model.

6. Collaboration

Smart city development faces many barriers around the world including tight municipal budgets, sluggish public procurement guidelines, privacy and cybersecurity concerns, and a pressing need for more IT talent at municipal agencies. Taking the time to deploy new, futuristic technologies can also be a luxury that many cities charged with the day-to-day running of a metropolis can’t afford. To disrupt and to accelerate the development of our urban eco-systems will require collaboration on a scale never seen before. The silos need to be broken and private-public-people partnerships will need to be developed and mainstreamed to co-create and implement the technology that can make our cities smart.

In partnership with leading organisation such as the Smart City Council, we are increasingly working on solutions to share information between cities and how they can support each other to grow. In this way, we expect to see more aggregation of needs, joint development projects and multi-city purchasing of solutions.

7. Compassion

All over the world, smart technologies are increasingly transforming cities — reducing congestion, cutting crime, modernizing the electric grid. Yet far too often, these benefits do not extend to those most in need — the poor, the disabled, the homeless and those without Internet access.

“Cities and towns have an immense role to play in ending poverty and building inclusive societies that promote participation by all,” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said at the Habitat III conference in Quito, Colombia that focused on sustainable urban development. Together with the increased focus by cities, businesses and NGOs on the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals, we expect to increasingly see technology and a spirit of compassion focused on making a difference to those in need.

For example, in Nairobi, Kenya, an estimated 2.5 million people live in slums, and over a third do not have access to clean water. For them water is a precious resource and often they would have to hunt around and wait in long lines to find water they could buy. More often than not the water supply points do not work, mainly due to lack of funds and capacity for operations and maintenance. Enter Vodafone, Ericsson and Grundfos who in a collaborative project are enabling Kenyans to use their mobile phones and the M-Pesa mobile money services to make payments for water. Now the people can pay for clean water by sending a text that unlocks a water pump. As a result of this guaranteed payment the local water companies are willing to connect a growing number of neighbourhoods to their systems.

Like this article? Feel free to contact the author Guy Bigwood, MCI Group Sustainability Director, at @guybigwood or guy.bigwood@mci-group.com. 

La entrada Part II: The Rising C’s of our Urban Future se publicó primero en Less Conversation More Action.

Cities have been the engines of knowledge, productivity and growth throughout history, and will be essential to the future competitiveness of nations and regions. As Smart City implementations become more mainstream, the market is now entering into a new phase: an important period where cities must engage all stakeholders and in particular the citizen to contribute to the decision-making process and to become active in the co-creation of healthier, more sustainable, prosperous and equitable places to live, work and play.

At MCI we are working with associations, cities, start-ups and industrial groups across the globe to create Smart Cities. On this journey we have been witnessing the impact, challenges and opportunities created by the digital transformation of our urban environment. Based on the analysis of these trends, we have identified 7 key insights – what we would like to call the “Rising C’s” of our urban future.

Part I of this article identifies the first four C’s:

1. Climate Change

The UN World Meteorological Organisation latest figures show that 2016 will very likely be the hottest year on record and a new high for the third year in a row. It also means 16 of the 17 hottest years on record will have been this century. UN estimates suggest that cities are responsible for 75 percent of global CO2 emissions, with transport and buildings being among the largest contributors. This means that cities are and will increasingly be at the front of the battle against climate change.

2. Crowded

By 2050, 70 percent of the world’s population will be urban. There will be over six billion of us living in cities – that’s more than the global population in 2000. How all those people live, and what their lives are like, will depend on important choices leaders made today and in the coming years. As such, municipalities around the world will be radically increasing their focus on smart city initiatives. Countries will also be following the leadership of their cities, and I expect that we will be seeing an increase in national smart city strategies. Take India for example with its US$15 billion mission to develop 100 smart cities.

3. Competitiveness

The race is on! Cities across the world are ramping up their programs and marketing to become leaders in the Smart City Race. It has become a key part of their place making strategy – and a driver at making their cities the most desirable place to work, play, study and invest in.

At the Smart City Expo in Barcelona this year, there was a 100% growth in the number of cities who had a booth and were dynamically promoting their strategies, solutions and providers. While there are clear leaders such as Barcelona, Copenhagen and Singapore – other cities such as Dubai, London and New York are on their heels – while LATAM giants like Bogota, Buenos Aires and Santiago are rapidly boosting the focus on smart urban development.

To enhance their competitiveness – we see our city clients developing an improved strategy of policy, institutions, resources and processes with a clear goal to enhance their brand, attract investment and talent, and increase the sustainability of their metropolis.

4. Cents and Sensibility

Few cities around the world have actually grown into truly “smart” cities — most are still in the early phases of implementing new technologies. However I do have strong indications that this is changing. With the increase in viable solutions and experienced providers, I do expect an explosion in the implementation of IoT devices like sensors, smart lights, and smart meters to gather data that can be analysed to gain new insights regarding their infrastructure, population, and public services.

One of the most iconic examples of a Smart City along these lines is the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with its Rio Operations Centre. In this centre, the city analyses data collected by sensors scattered throughout the urban area, and views images collected by over 1,000 cameras. The centre, built in 2010, works 24 hours a day and brings together 500 employees.

Like many good innovations, the solutions don’t have to be so complex. By collecting and analysing data from waste containers across a city, companies such as Enevo are helping to reduce waste collection by up to 80%. Pilot cities such as Rotterdam and Edinburgh now know when collections are done and where operations can be further streamlined. They can track their waste generation and get detailed information on how much they are diverting from the landfill by recycling. This results into significant savings on time, fuel, service costs and emissions.

These solutions will reduce the carbon emissions of cities and make the infrastructure more resilient in the face of extreme weather events like hurricanes and tropical storms. It will also have a significant effect of the bottom line of cities, as can be seen by cities such as Dubai who have saved $1.09B between 2003 and 2015 through the adoption of similar smart initiatives.

Stay tuned next week to discover the remaining three C’s!

Like this article? Feel free to contact the author Guy Bigwood, MCI Group Sustainability Director, at @guybigwood or guy.bigwood@mci-group.com.

La entrada Part I: The Rising C’s of Our Urban Future se publicó primero en Less Conversation More Action.

Community building projects offer great support to local communities, but at the same time, are powerful business tools for increasing the impact of an event. More specifically, they provide a competitive advantage to clients, both in terms of improving their corporate social responsibility credibility and by bringing various stakeholders together for a good cause, facilitating networking and the exchange of ideas.

For more than a decade, sustainable strategies have been integral to our mission, core values, and growth strategy. In retrospect, the road has been filled with momentous milestones. Here are a few examples, highlighting MCI’s contribution to communities, while driving business results:

• MCI Dubai‘s Dream Day – where the team collaborated with the Red Crescent to support 20 orphan kids of different nationalities who lost their parents in the war zone.
• MCI Vancouver raised $1,170 for the Canucks Autism Network (CAN) to help the foundation spread awareness, provide year-round, high- quality sports, recreational, arts, and social programmes for families living with autism across British Columbia.
• MCI Stockholm organised a fund-raising exercise to provide aid for Syrian refugees who had to flee to Lebanon. In partnership with Save the Children, the amount of €1,565 was raised for those in need.
• MCI Amsterdam has been supporting the Dreambuilders project since 2014 sending talents to Nagarkot, Nepal for helping with the improvement of the school environment and education for local children.
• For the World Congress for Safety and Health in Singapore, MCI invited Social Enterprise, Nuevo Dance Fitness to demonstrate an exercise suitable for individuals with limited mobility. The aim was to promote a healthier lifestyle and engage attendees in a friendly routine.
• In this year’s International Congress for Conservation Biology (ICCB 2017) in Cartagena, MCI collaborated with the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB), where 12K$ were invested in 2 certified local projects. One on the reforestation and restoration of over 4000 hectares in Puerto Carreño, Vichada and the other on reducing the consumption of firewood by constructing and installing efficient cooking stoves in rural communities of Colombia. For the full report on how these projects will help offset 100% of the event’s carbon emissions, visit here.

It is also important to remember that community building is a catalyst for communicating the importance of promoting sustainable practices for our business at a greater level. For example, look at the recent collaboration between ICCA, ICCA’s Scandinavian Chapter, IMEX and MCI, where we co-created the Global Destination Sustainability Index with city rankings to help industry experts drive the adoption, promotion and recognition of responsible practices in the events industry. Read more information here.

To discover how we can help you design a sustainable event that elevates your brand and exceeds expectations in attendee participation, visit us here.

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1. It’s about business or is it?

Most of us can comprehend that even a strong business won’t survive on a dead planet, or in a society that is breaking down. However, in most situations sustainability needs to make immediate short term business sense. Consequently it’s always important to highlight the impacts of environmental and social actions on the bottom line. For example what’s the financial cost when a company is legally required to compensate for all of its carbon emissions? What is the saving by reducing your printing? How much will you save by recycling more waste at the venue? How much business are you making from clients who care about sustainability? What is the potential for new projects in high growth sustainability areas such as renewables, SMART cities etc.?

At the same time we have seen that MCI’s employees believe it’s an ethical decision and not solely a business responsibility for us to act. In our recent stakeholder engagement questionnaire, 76% of our talent think MCI have a moral obligation to support the development of a more sustainable and responsible global economy (up 10% from 2014). Combining the financial arguments and stakeholder pressure has made a strong business case that we have increasingly leveraged.

2. Client as catalyst

Winning a new client that is focused on sustainability has proven to be a major catalyst to our own program. To date we have delivered over 850 projects about climate change, conservation, responsible business, social innovation and energy. When our teams start to work on these projects, they typically get inspired and motivated by the cause, and are driven to think creatively and act more sustainably. We use a scorecard system to benchmark all of our offices for their sustainability performance and can now model how engagement, sales and results go hand in hand.

MCI sustainability program delivers business results

3.Reward and recognise

Although we have a sustainability team at MCI, the big change is driven by our 100+ champions around the world. These are the professionals challenging their clients, supplier and colleagues to implement more sustainable solutions on a day to day basis. It’s very important that these efforts are recognised and rewarded. Consequently we created and continue to evolve an annual internal award for Leadership in Sustainability and Innovation in Sustainability. The process of asking offices to present their best projects and enter into friendly competition has significantly enhanced and accelerated our internal sustainability program and the commitment to sustainability internally among our talent.

MCI Sustainability award winners – MCI Geneva

4. Communicate, communicate, communicate

To build a culture of care and responsibility, we have learnt that you have to be creative, persistent and dogmatic in your communication. Sustainability themes need to be weaved throughout the corporate communications strategy and not just added on. Yes it’s good to have a dedicated sustainability blog (like our www.lessconversationmoreaction,com) but we have seen that we get greater outreach and engagement if we integrate articles about responsible business in our company blog, internal and client newsletters. And it can’t be just a whim – communication needs to be consistent, regular, personal and ideally humorous.  A great example was the creation of “Adam Greenie” – the MCI Amsterdam sustainability mascot, who is the personality that communicates about the efforts of the Dutch team. Adam is also good at chastising the team for poor performance and is responsible for communicating to HQ.

5. Millenials and Aspirationals

In the last ten years, the numbers and influence of millennials at MCI has grown considerably. Our research has shown that our millennials care. Over 85% of new employees read our sustainability website before their interview and it’s this group of people that is the most supportive of our sustainability program, but also the most critical. Over 58% of these talents believe that inconsistent action is a key threat to MCI and they don’t mind reminding us.

However, we have discovered that the majority of our staff are from a target group entitled the “Aspirationals” – a group defined not by their year of birth but by their desire to be part of something bigger and to achieve a better world.  These Aspirationals represent 40% of the global market, and are driving companies like MCI to embody a new set of values that drives a transition to a more sustainable world. This group of Aspirationals wants and expects companies to communicate their sustainability “story”. In fact 83% of MCI Talent wants to hear even more stories of how their colleagues are working with sustainability to better integrate it into their day-to-day operations.

MCI’s aspirational Talent has supported over 468 community projects in the last ten years

6. Make it relevant and simple

The vast majority of our staff want to integrate sustainability into their daily work. However at times in the last decade we have made sustainability too complicated and too abstract. Key to effective engagement and culture change is creating processes and products that are easy to understand and implement, but equally relevant to the teams. We’ve learnt over the years that our teams often appreciate hearing more about small actions in everyday projects rather than our uber-sustainable projects. The simple reason being that super sustainable clients are not that common whereas everyone has a client where they can do a few sustainable actions.

7. Competition drives performance

As much as we’d not like to admit it, we are truly social animals and constantly look to our friends, family or colleagues for validation. This is even more evident in sustainability, over the 10 years we’ve seen a lot of clients and suppliers take action because their competitors have taken action. We’ve been able to use this peer validation to great affect with our office scorecard system. Ranking our office performance and sharing this in management meetings via a little shame and fame session has really helped keep the focus and motivate action. Wherever you can stimulate competition you’ll see stronger performance. This we have also demonstrated in our project the Global Destination Sustainability Index – where we benchmark over 40 destinations for their sustainability performance.

8. One dedicated individual really can change the world

Anthropoligist Margaret Mead famously stated «Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world” and we’ve found this truer than ever in our business. Having the right person in the right position can create a huge impact and we’ve been lucky to see a number of our “Sustainability Champions” take senior level positions later in their career and wield a lot of influence whilst creating a lot of opportunity. Just one person asking one question in a single project meeting can create a whole avalanche of decisions resulting in much higher sustainability achievements.

Summary

At times, championing sustainability can be a very tough and unrewarding responsibility. Yet it can also be the most inspiring, motivating job in the world. When I see how our staff have changed, and how sustainability is now considered in how we make acquisitions, select suppliers, recruit staff, appraise our talent, select finance partners, build our offices, organise our events, construct our stage sets and design our food offering – I am overcome by a sense of collective achievement. However to be frank, we are only just scratching the surface and over the next ten years we need to turn the “volume up”, and become seriously creative if we are going to significantly reduce the environmental impacts and maximise the positive legacy potential of the +5700 events we organise every year.

mci sustainability report

La entrada Lessons from a decade of dedication se publicó primero en Less Conversation More Action.

Kyoto’s ‘Kyoto Visitors Host’ program increases opportunities for visitors to meet local artisans and help direct more tourist spending towards the local economy, especially traditional industries. Image courtesy of Kyoto Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Over the past year research has been ongoing into pioneering thinking in sustainable destination management. Below are 4 of the key trends to be discovered in the soon-to-be-released whitepaper from the 2016 Global Destination Sustainability Index:

Targeted Storytelling
Advertising is out, storytelling is in. DMOs are segmenting consumer profiles and developing more reactive and nuanced content based on Big Data.

DMOs as an Economic Development Agency
Destinations have evolved to become much more strategic about how they attract and create events that support their city’s development agenda.

Localism
Today’s discerning traveller seeks the authentic, seeks the original and seeks to experience the local.

Peak Tourism- The need to engage the community
The balance has become precarious between the environmental capacity and quality of life for residents of popular destinations.

To learn more about how these trends and a raft of other developments are impacting MICE destinations and how event strategies are adapting, stay tuned for the whitepaper to be released in May!

Melbourne Convention Bureau are using the index to bring together key stakeholders and leverage the city’s credentials to attract conferences. Karen Bolinger, CEO, states  “As a leading convention bureau, we are using the GDS-Index to benchmark and ensure that conference organisers benefit from hosting sustainable events, while working with industry partners to enhance the Melbourne experience now and into the future”.

Malmö Convention Bureau see the index as a catalyst to transforming and enabling stronger relationships locally. Katarina Olsson, Head of Malmö Convention Bureau shares that “The index inspires us to work in a structured way towards our goal to become one of the most sustainable destinations in the World. It has helped us in highlighting our challenges and aids the wider development of the city”.

Visit www.gds-index.com for more insights into this industry changing collective, receive the newsletter or to join.

To learn more of the insights from the whitepaper, don’t miss the strategic session at IMEX’s EduMonday on Monday 15th May at 17:00 in the Congress Center Messe Frankfurt. Registration is compulsory for this brand new education experience, so visit the IMEX website for more information!

For the full article click here.

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Amongst all the gloom, I see a silver lining (I know, it’s really annoying- this always looking for the positives thing): Maybe this year, will be the year that corporate values really matter and how brands stand by their values in the face of potentially opposing political policy.

The president has been in power for just 2 weeks and already we are seeing brands being positively and negatively affected by the actions they take on the fringes of all this political turmoil.The most prominent being Uber. Following a taxi strike at NYC airport in support of the protest  against the new immigration ban, Uber dropped their “surge pricing”. This combined with their CEO sitting on the President’s “Strategic and Policy Forum” and a history of being an aggressive player in the transport industry led to a #deleteuber movement trending on social media.  Such a high volume of customers began to delete the app that Uber had to make the process easier.

Meanwhile Uber’s arch rival in the US, Lyft rose to number 4 in the app download charts by shrewdly seizing the moment and donating $1 million to the ACLU, the civil liberties union which will be on point for the next 4 years fighting for the rights of everyday Americans.

What are we witnessing here?

Businesses visibly and aggressively winning and losing customers based on the values that they are demonstrating, even by the tiniest actions or in some cases lack of action.

We saw it last year too with Volkswagen as global profits dropped 20% following their emissions swindling, though – lucky for them – they have since bounced back.

The latest brand throwing its hat into the ring is Starbucks, with CEO Howard Schultz announcing that the company will hire 10,000 refugees in the next 5 years. A boycott movement began from those leaning hard to the right but now it seems that many consumers are actually more likely to go to Starbucks.

So here’s the wake up call:

1. Corporate Values matter.
2. Consumers continue to demand that brands have a purpose, and that it’s good.
3. Social Values are at least equal if not more important than Environmental Performance
4. Actions speak louder than words- brands must bring to life their values- physically.

This year is the year that brands must and will demonstrate their commitment to a better world, to a just world and to a planet that is protected from environmental degradation.

Which side of history will your company stand on?

La entrada Politics – the 21st century battleground for Corporate Values se publicó primero en Less Conversation More Action.