Insight: Issue 115 | 07 Dec

Some tasty treats from your Ad-event Calendar

December has arrived; the trees are up, the wine is a-mullin’ and Mariah’s belting it out as-per. So to mark the beginning of the festivities, we’re gonna kick things off with our own brand of events news revelry.

This week’s merriment includes: SEC and Freeman among organisations using Net Zero roadmap; EICC lines up global energy conferences for 2023, set to boost economic benefit to city and region; Half a billion kilos of C02 could be saved with site visits in metaverse; UK’s isla launches sustainability guide for venue sector; and Live Group unveils AudienceDNA tool to optimise event engagement.

SEC and Freeman among organisations using Net Zero roadmap

Us

US based events company Freeman and Glasgow’s SEC are Net Zero Carbon Events Roadmap ready – and are just a couple among the many global organisations who have embarked on their Net Zero by 2050 campaign since COP27 already.

Launched to help suppliers, venues and and businesses on their route to net zero, the Roadmap provides a framework for measuring and evaluating progress, and includes 5 key action areas:

Energy
Production & Waste
Food & Food Waste
Freight & Logistics
Travel

With a core focus energy, SEC’s CEO Peter Duthrie gives more detail on the Glasgow venue’s Net Zero strategy:

“Central to achieving our net zero goal is the development of an ambitious energy strategy which will transition the campus to renewable energy.

“We’re also implementing efficiency measures including the use of LED lighting across our venues and taking further actions around water efficiency, green travel, supply chain engagement and waste management.”

If you’re an events organisation, there’s still time to get in on the action and sign up. So get your skates on and let’s wipe out our greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 (at the latest, yeah?)

EICC lines up global energy conferences for 2023

Global energy conferences InterPore2023 and HYDRO 2023 are Edinburgh bound. The EICC is set to see thousands strong delegate attendance for both events, and will mean massive economic benefit for the capital. Along with the securing of 2023’s International Spinal Cord Society Annual Scientific Meeting, its projected that attendee spending will make a whopping £6 million for the region.

Next year’s InterPore conference will have a focus on the transition between fossil-based energy sources to low-carbon energy solutions, and corral over 80 porous media scientists and engineers from around the globe to impart their knowledge and explore solutions. Speaking on the event, InterPore Executive Officer Dr Karolin C. Weber said:

“Transitioning to zero-carbon energy sources is the biggest and most difficult global challenge to mankind, and efforts in this area must intensify in order to have the desired effect on lowering carbon dioxide emissions. With a focus on Energy Transition, InterPore2023 in Edinburgh will feature a plenary lecture with a leading expert in Energy Transition, and forums which will facilitate discussion and action amongst delegates regarding the latest urgent research needs in this area.”

EICC’s CEO Marshall Dallas gives detail on what the events will mean for the venue:

“We’re proud to be chosen as the venue which will host these significant global discussions – and together with some of the UK and international conference wins which we announced earlier in the year, we are now looking at a return to pre-pandemic activity at the venue next year, which is encouraging for our team and our city partners.”

Half a billion kilos of C02 could be saved with site visits in metaverse

Enter the Matrix Metaverse.

Sadly, site visits and travel mean the events industry are responsible for almost half a billion (456 million) kilograms of CO2 emissions on an annual basis. Recently conducted research has shown that every venue inspection produces an average of 4.8 kilograms of CO2, and with a minimum of 95 million inspections per year, that’s going to do a fair bit of damage.

It looks like an answer is on the way… 

Pioneering tech gurus, RendezVerse have developed a sustainable site visit solution through the use of the ever expanding Metaverse – meaning no travel requirements and little environmental impact.

Mark Brown, COO, RendezVerse gives us the lowdown:

“The metaverse we have created, which already hosts over 40,000 m2 of digital twin space, will drastically reduce in-person site inspections. Our aim is to get north of 80% of site inspections taking place in the metaverse, which offers a far greener solution.”

RendezVerse’s clients already include major international venues Marriott Madrid Auditorium and InterContinental Paris Le Grand.

UK’s isla launches sustainability guide for venue sector

Events sustainability stalwarts Isla have whipped up an action-focused guide to aid support meetings and event venues on their journey to Net Zero.

Isla’s Sustainability in Practice: A Pathway for Venues has been created to encourage venue’s to set “realistic but ambitious” goals to achieve Net Zero by 2050, and sets a framework that coherently lays out five key areas of action when developing a sustainable strategy. These include: company operations; commitments and communications; event deliveries; measurement and reporting; and value chain engagement.

Penned with the help of VisitBritain Business Events and support of Association of Event Venues (AEV), the Meetings Industry Association (mia) and industry association beam, the guide acts as a “what, when and how” of sustainable practice.

Manchester Central head honcho Shaun Hinds speaks on the benefits the guide will have for those in the industry.

“Despite its significance, as an industry we are still grappling with a lack of clarity and understanding as to how to make meaningful, impactful change to help us get there. The isla guide is a useful tool to help us harmonise our thinking and take steps in the right direction, together. We have already demonstrated our ability, as a sector, to provide innovative solutions to macro challenges and this is another great example of that.”

Live Group unveils AudienceDNA tool to optimise event engagement

*Useful bit of kit alert*

Live Group have launched ‘AudienceDNA’, a game changing, first-of-its-kind audience profiling tool.

Born of a project led by Bruce Rose, Live Group’s new Head of Audience, the new tech will allow for enhanced, in-depth insight into delegate personality, networking preference and learning style, and make the selection of event format, venue, agenda, content a whole lot more tailored to your audience.

This new piece of kit works through the collection and analysis of data through a series of questions, that go ways to identifying preferences on everything from format to virtual/physical attendance.

Rose gives us a bit of insight as to what the new tool means for the industry:

“We’ve brought together our expert and innately human knowledge of the event industry with a ‘Silicon Valley’ level approach to data analytics to give us a real understanding of exactly what delegates want before we commit to building an event. We’ll understand whether an audience is largely made up of introverted or extroverted personality types, we’ll know their preference for physical or digital events, and we’ll be able to differentiate between delegates who will be coming to learn and those who are more inclined to socialise.”

That wraps things up nicely for this week folks

Join us again for next week’s veritable feast of event news knowledge.