WorldEvents™ Celebrates EIBTM Sustainable Initiative of the Year Award
Live events agency, WorldEvents™ is celebrating after winning the inaugural EIBTM 'Sustainable Initiative of the Year' Award. Presented in Barcelona on Wednesday 2nd December, the award was in recognition of their 2009 Annual Company Conference - 'Our Business Rocks', which was also the agencies first BS8901 compliant event. The Conference was run to the company’s TripleImpact® best practice initiative for the planning of an event. A TripleImpact® event being one that miminises the impact on the environment, delivers a social impact by putting something back into the local community and delivers a commercial impact by way of a return on investment. The WorldEvents™ company conference took place in July at Escrick Park near York - an 8,000 acre estate dedicated to conservation of the local area. The original idea for what became a Festival was conceived by staff at a previous event. Papakata, a series of tent like structures made from natural fibres, were used for the actual venue and offered a unique environment for the conference. From the outset the Agency wanted to ensure that this was the most sustainable event it had organised. This included consulting its own ‘Green Events Guide’ – an extensive checklist that recommends means to ensure that sustainability is at the fore of the event planning process. WorldEvents™ worked with local caterers to create a menu that was locally sourced, organic and really healthy, looking at food miles and how this impacts on the events overall carbon footprint. Signage was also developed from wood, which was then converted into bird boxes and presented to Escrick Park Estate after the conference. Working with Seventeen Events and their Eventberry software WorldEvents™ were able to monitor and evaluate the environmental impact of the event and ensure it remained BS8901 compliant. WorldEvents™ felt it key that it put something back into the local community from the conference from a charitable perspective. To this end, in the weeks prior to the event staff collected clothes, shoes, books and non-perishable food which became the focal point of an activity run by teambuilding company Catalyst that involved creating the WorldEvents™ logo on a giant scale, using the items donated by staff members. After the event the donations were sent to local charities in York, including Shelter and Carecent - a refuge for homeless people in and around the city. The EIBTM judging panel praised this aspect event as particularly innovative. The EIBTM Awards are an integral element of the EIBTM trade show held in Spain and are now in their 9th year. They encourage creativity and reward excellence in the meetings and incentive industry and offer recognition for the many talented event management companies. Commenting on the Awards, chair of judges Jeremy Garbett said: “We have been delighted this year by the highly innovative concepts of the events submitted. We have been particularly impressed with the quality of entries received in our new Award for Sustainable Initiative of the Year. It is clear that the industry is taking sustainable issues to heart and putting words into actions.” Collecting the Award on behalf of the company, Group Sales and Marketing Director, Mark Saxby, commented that, “Sustainability is very important for WorldEvents™ and the event industry at large and it will only become more important as time goes by. We wanted to allow staff to be involved with and to experience firsthand what we are doing on this so they can share it with our clients. We are pleased that EIBTM has included sustainability in its awards and are thrilled to have become the first recipients. This follows our winning the IMEX Commitment to the Community Award for the second year running so we are delighted to be achieving this level of recognition in the industry”
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