Whether you’re passionate about the environment or your attendees are asking you to up your eco credentials, sustainable event planning is important for event organizers. In fact, 61% of organizers plan on making their events more eco-friendly this year.
But with so many things to think about when you organize an event and so many demands on your budget, planning a green event might seem like a further complication.
However, with a little thought and consideration, you can easily understand — and minimize — the impact of your event on the environment.
At Eventbrite, we’ve helped organize events all around the world (including the green ones), so we know a thing or two about reducing your event’s carbon footprint. We’re here to offer a helping hand so you can focus on what you’re best at — curating memorable event experiences.
Here are some simple steps to make your events more sustainable and examples of event organizers already implementing these steps.
Tips for sustainable events
1. Save trees, send digital invitations
3. Create a green catering plan
5. Find green transport options
6. Give chemical toilets the flush
8. Work with sustainable event suppliers
9. Choose a venue that’s LEED-certified
10. Develop unique sustainability goals
12. Work on a zero or minimal-waste policy
13. Use eco-friendly event merchandise
14. Encourage sustainable lodging for attendees
15. Partner with local conservation efforts
16. Educate attendees about sustainability
What is sustainable event management?
Sustainable event management, also known as green or eco-friendly event management, refers to organizing and managing events to minimize negative environmental impacts. This approach involves careful planning and execution to ensure that the event is environmentally responsible and conserves resources.
The importance of event sustainability has become a pressing issue in recent years, and this will only continue. Having greener events is a priority for 63% of event organizers. That’s not just because of their convictions but also because it creates opportunities for events that reach the 69% of attendees who want events that connect them with nature.
As an event organizer, it’s your responsibility to do what you can to lower your event’s carbon footprint as much as possible. Sustainable event management starts at the planning stage and includes various aspects, including waste reduction, energy efficiency, sustainable sourcing, water conservation, and promoting social responsibility. It will impact many of your decisions, such as the contractors, sponsors, and suppliers you choose.
How do you organize green events?
It’s all well and good to say you want to organize a sustainable event. But where do you start? Below are some great ways to make a positive impact on your event.
1. Save trees, send digital invitations
Given deforestation’s impact on climate change, avoid paper invites. Rather than posting invites and info packs, reduce waste (and postage costs) by using Eventbrite for your event promotion and management. You can create an event page with full joining instructions for your attendees and send email invitations from your Eventbrite account.
With a suite of customization tools, your digital invitation can look just as appealing as a paper one, and you can contact up to 2,000 attendees daily. Plus, you can view who’s opened your email invitation or unsubscribed from your mailing list so you can make data-driven decisions.
Meanwhile, attendees can download the Eventbrite app and receive tickets straight to their phones. Simply scan the QR code to check in attendees easily — a completely paper-free process!
Want to create simple, effective event invitations?
2. Upcycle and recycle
When choosing materials for your event, incorporate recycled and upcycled elements where possible. Single-use items can produce a vast amount of waste and damage the planet.
Instead, make an effort to source things that you can give a new life to. Strategies could include asking attendees to return their lanyards or badge covers after an event so future attendees can use them or using whiteboards or chalkboards instead of hard-to-reuse print signs.
Of course, there will be some materials that you can’t reuse. In that case, recycle suitable materials, like plastic, cardboard, and paper. Encourage your attendees to recycle at your event, too, by making it clear where the recycling stations are and what each bin is for.
3. Create a green catering plan
Food is a major driver of climate change, so using planet-friendly catering services is key to green event planning. Reducing the amount of meat you serve and having more plant-based, sustainable options can help to make your event greener because animal-based foods usually have a bigger carbon footprint.
Over-catering is also common at many events, resulting in unnecessary waste. Meegan Jones, author of Sustainable Event Management: A Practical Guide, says: ‘Food into landfill is a major cause of landfill methane emissions, a global greenhouse gas emissions contributor.’
To cut down on food waste, Jones recommends accurately estimating the amount of food required for the number of attendees, the event type and timing of activities or breaks, and asking about dietary requirements in advance (which you can do on Eventbrite by creating an RSVP website with specific fields). You should also correctly handle any unconsumed perishable food to donate it to food salvage programs later.
4. Keep it local
When sourcing what you need for your event, try to do so as locally as possible to reduce the environmental effects of transportation. This also has the added bonus of supporting your local community while also being a green practice.
For sustainable food, think about what’s in season and what’s easily available — it’s not green to ship in strawberries from South America so that you can have a strawberry shortcake in December!
5. Find green transport options
Excess carbon emissions produced by hundreds of single-occupant car journeys can have a harmful environmental impact, so encourage event participants to find greener alternatives. Highlight bike or scooter-sharing programs, like NYC’s Citi Bike, with terminals near your event space.
Detail all public transportation options available in the area where your event is taking place, such as buses, trains, or subways.
Encourage attendees driving to the event to carpool with other attendees they know or to use a rideshare app like Uber Pool with a sustainable option for carpooling.
Choosing a venue near public transit options that reduce the need to fly long distances will also help support sustainable event practices. As the chart above shows, domestic flights emit much more carbon per mile than a car ride.
Help attendees reduce their carbon footprint by planning for transportation. You could even offer attendees less fossil fuel-intensive options like shuttles or bikes. Or you can give them tools to calculate their transportation’s carbon footprint.
6. Give chemical toilets the flush
Chemical toilets aren’t just unpleasant — they’re also environmentally unfriendly. If you need outdoor facilities at your event, consider some of the newer, greener toilet options instead, which use sawdust to eliminate smells. Once the waste is composted, it can be spread on fields to feed the land. Don’t forget to include some recycled toilet paper, too!
7. Go renewable
If your event requires sound and staging, consider ways to reduce energy consumption. If possible, choose low-energy lights with a reduced power demand when they’re dimmed or shut off or even natural lighting instead of using electricity.
You could have fun with your renewable energy supplies by asking your attendees to get involved. From bike-powered coffee makers to charger stations, pedaling can power several installations. You could also use a dance floor or walkway to create kinetic energy. By asking attendees to generate power, you can entertain and educate at the same time.
8. Work with sustainable event suppliers
You need to collaborate with sustainable event suppliers to run a truly green event. By choosing suppliers who align with your ethics, you can be sure they’ll do what they can to make your event environmentally friendly. Creating a list of requirements when you choose your suppliers is a good idea.
That way, you can set your demands and go with suppliers that meet them. For instance, you might want to use reusable event decorations and props — so find a supplier to make that possible.
9. Choose a venue that’s LEED-certified
The easiest way to create a sustainable event experience is to choose sustainable event venues where everything is taken care of for you.
To help ensure the venues you’re looking at walk the walk, limit your search to venues with an international sustainability certification like the LEED certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design).
LEED was created in 1998 by the US Green Building Council and guarantees that a building meets a set of sustainability standards. There are multiple LEED certifications, each demonstrating a different level of sustainability. ‘LEED-certified’ is the lowest level, and then it goes to Silver, Gold, and Platinum as the most sustainable standards.
This system uses an eco-friendly venue’s efficiency with energy consumption and water use to rate how sustainable it is. For that reason, it can help you save resources like water and power, divert organic waste from landfills to places where it can be composted, and offset all of your event’s carbon emissions.
10. Develop unique sustainability goals
Your first step toward creating greener events is to develop actionable sustainability goals unique to your event.
Start by assessing what you currently use and promote, and let the data speak for itself. For example, do you rely on single-use plastic bottles? Do your event attendees use public transport or drive separately to your events? Does your catering team end up with lots of leftover food?
If you need help getting started with your sustainable events, the nonprofit group myclimate has a free calculator to help you work out your event’s carbon impact.
Once you’ve calculated your environmental impact, you can start developing actionable goals you can work toward. You could encourage attendees to bring reusable bottles, set up a shuttle for the event, or donate leftovers to a food bank to reduce your environmental footprint.
11. Purchase carbon credits
Another great way to make your event carbon-neutral is to purchase carbon credits. A carbon credit is a token representing your event’s carbon impact. It’s a type of carbon offset that makes up for your event’s impact by giving money to projects that remove greenhouse gasses, such as forest reclamation projects.
It’s what two-thirds of the world’s biggest companies with net-zero goals do to hit those objectives, so it’s worth looking at.
It caps your pollution and waste levels to a certain amount — and if you don’t end up using all of your credits, you can sell them back onto the market. This demonstrates to guests that you’re committed to reducing your carbon footprint, and there’s a monetary incentive for using less than what you pay for.
Best of all, the carbon credits you purchase finance sustainability projects directly across the globe.
There are a few different types of carbon credits, and you can learn more about them and purchase them on a number of carbon credit marketplaces like ACT Commodities, Terrapass, and South Pole.
12. Work on a zero or minimal-waste policy
Aiming for zero waste is a bold but impactful goal. This involves planning events to minimize waste sent to landfills by maximizing recycling, composting, and reusing event materials.
Encourage event staff, vendors, and participants to avoid disposable event supplies. That means making sure your decorations, plates and cups, tickets, and other event materials are reusable. Similarly, vendors should use reusable materials, and participants should have zero-waste options like digital tickets and activities that don’t generate trash.
13. Use eco-friendly event merchandise
Make your swag bags even better by using sustainable products. This could include items made from sustainable materials such as bamboo, recycled materials, or organic cotton. Besides, everybody loves a goodie bag, so that’ll immediately improve the overall attendee experience!
Additionally, consider offering digital merchandise to reduce physical and plastic waste, such as digital downloads or virtual photo booths. This can work for virtual, hybrid, and in-person events.
14. Encourage sustainable lodging for attendees
For events attracting out-of-town guests, partner with hotels with proven sustainability commitments. Similar to the sustainable venues, you can look for LEED-certified buildings. Just make sure they’re near your event venue so your visitors don’t burn too much carbon getting there!
15. Partner with local conservation efforts
Connect your event with local environmental or conservation projects. This can involve organizing volunteer opportunities for attendees, such as tree planting or beach clean-ups, or donating a portion of the event proceeds to local environmental organizations.
This not only helps the planet but also connects your attendees with the local community in a meaningful way.
16. Educate attendees about sustainability
Use your event to educate attendees about sustainability issues and solutions. This could be through workshops, keynote speeches, or informational booths.
Topics could cover a wide range of issues, from global climate change to local recycling programs. Provide this educational component to help attendees become more conscious of their environmental impact and inspire them to make sustainable choices in their daily lives.
17. Give back on Earth Day
Celebrate the planet on or around April 22 with a green Earth Day event. This eco-friendly holiday brings attention to the harm that pollution and deforestation cause and it’s a great occasion for service events.
Examples of sustainable events ideas
All that’s great in the abstract, but how do you start making those sustainable practices a reality? Here are some ideas for sustainable events to inspire your green event creation journey.
Women in Sustainability’s Thrift Prom
Women in Sustainability pairs sustainable themes with fun through events like their Thrift Prom. It’s a dance where everyone comes wearing their most dapper, thrifty outfit. Plus, it’s probably less awkward than the one you went to in high school.
Events like the Thrift Prom are great examples of how to weave a sustainable theme into an event centered around fun and socialization. Plus, it’s more accessible than a normal dance because it centers around getting your clothes from an inexpensive source!
Climate Designers Bay Area Chapter’s Art & Teaching Garden Day
Sustainable events can also center around teaching people how to be more sustainable in their work and day-to-day lives. That’s the idea behind the Climate Designers Bay Area Chapter’s Art & Teaching Garden Day.
The day paired a workshop on sustainable gardening with an art gardens exhibition, showing the impact of sustainable practices and applying them at the same time.
The Nest’s Clothing Swap
The fashion industry is a big contributor to global waste, and buying or swapping secondhand clothing is one way everyone can help counteract this issue. The Nest‘s clothing swap lets attendees share clothing, shoes, and accessories in good condition that they no longer want or need.
Any items that don’t find a new home during the swap are donated to a local organization to live on. The Nest also hosts free workshops about clothing care and the KonMari Method to help combat consumerism and encourage people to take better care of the clothes they already have.
Green event planning doesn’t have to be a challenge
Following a plan can take some of the hassles and costs out of planning a green event. It may seem difficult, but planning a green event can make some parts of your event planning easier by incorporating labor-saving tech like QR codes and keeping transportation simple. At the same time, it appeals to attendees who care deeply about the environment.
Now that you know how to make your events more sustainable, Eventbrite can help you implement your plan. It’s the most popular event platform for a good reason — it’s got the tools to make event organizers’ lives easier by centralizing your event marketing, event planning, and registration and ticketing all in one place.
