Sustainable Intelligence

Tracking your event’s carbon footprint with an AI-powered platform

Planning and executing an event without thinking about sustainability is a non-negotiable. But sustainability can no longer be just a good-will effort with a couple of green initiatives. Attendees and business leaders are expecting events to implement sustainability in a way that makes a real difference.   

Luckily, more and more tools are becoming available to help track sustainability so that it isn’t just a nice idea—and it isn’t limited to things like reducing food waste and plastic materials. AI-powered sustainability intelligence platforms can measure a conference’s carbon footprint. With these metrics, you can get an accurate snapshot of your footprint. Plus the tool can make suggestions on what you can do to reduce, reuse, and offset waste and emissions. 

Here are a few things to keep in mind when it comes to tracking sustainability to take action.

Choosing the right platform 

There many options to choose from. How do you pick the right one? First, you need to define your sustainability goals. What do you want to measure? How do the results need to be presented? Are there specific metrics you need to include? You also might want to consider what kind of recommendations and support they provide and if all the insights are presented via a user-friendly dashboard.  

One of our clients needed a simple way to report their sustainability metrics to key leaders in their company. We’ve had experience working with Thrust, a platform that got its start by helping companies achieve climate compliance with carbon reporting and reduction for business travel. Now they cover the entire event space. Not only was the platform able to account for things like the venue’s sustainability rating measured against global benchmarks, it provided an infographic report that made complex metrics easy to understand.  

What to measure 

You might immediately think about the obvious areas to track: travel, food consumption and waste, and plastic use and waste. But there are so many more areas. Consider looking at local travel around the event site in addition to travel to and from the conference. You can also measure the amount of electricity used at the event as well as the sustainability rating of both the venue and vendors. Again, the right tool will automatically track these, or can recommend what you should be keeping in mind.

Taking action 

You understand your metrics, you’ve received and digested a helpful report. Now what? A good platform will also recommend some ways to improve. These action items could take a couple of different forms. It could mean offsetting emissions by planting trees or some other net positive action. It could mean finding ways to have attendees generate electricity while at the event. Or it could mean investing in reusable materials—from event sets to swag to signage and more.  

The recent conversation around sustainability is clear that it’s not just good for the earth, it’s good for your business. Tracking sustainability metrics is how you can prove the value of both

To learn more about all the sustainability trends we’re seeing at events, check out our Brand Experience Report here.  

To learn more about all the sustainability trends we’re seeing at events, check out our Brand Experience Report here.