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Greener Events Guide :
A practical guide to reducing the environmental impact of your event

This guide is for anyone organising a festival, conference, sporting or other event. It is full of practical tips, resources and information to help ensure your event is both successful and environmentally responsible. It includes an action plan template and checklists for each aspect of event greening.

A guide to running a major event is also available.

1 Introduction

Organising a festival, conference, sporting or other event? This guide is full of practical tips, resources and checklists to help ensure your event is both successful and more environmentally responsible. It suggests ways to reduce the environmental impacts of staging your event – from choosing the venue and location, to managing communications, suppliers, catering, waste and transport. Using this guide, you’ll find that ‘event greening’ makes good business sense and guarantees a better experience for everyone involved.

2 Why host a greener event?

Greening your event can:

Improve the experience of your participants – well-organised ‘greener’ practices of the kind described in this guide will improve, rather than detract from, your attendees’ experiences. For example, ensuring they have access to a convenient public transport system will reduce their travel time, traffic congestion, and parking issues.
Position you as a leader – demonstrating your environmental commitment can enhance relationships with your customers and stakeholders.
Save you money – by reducing the costs of waste disposal, energy and water.
Create legacies – by raising attendees’ awareness, inspiring behaviour change, and influencing suppliers to adopt greener practices.
Help the environment and local communities – by minimising the use of water and energy; reducing greenhouse gas emissions and waste; and boosting local economies.

It makes good business sense.

Activities associated with hosting an event can have negative impacts on the environment

Any event involves transporting people, goods and services to and from the venue. This can create congestion and generate greenhouse gases. In addition, a large amount of waste is often created by promotional activities, construction and food consumption. All that waste tends to end up in the landfill.

New Zealanders are concerned about environmental impacts

The vast majority of New Zealanders – 83 per cent – are aware that the world is facing significant environmental problems because of climate change. Over 32 per cent are interested in environmentally responsible products and services.¹ As the number of environmentally-aware New Zealanders continues to grow, so will public expectations for events that are more environmentally responsible.

3 How to use this guide

The next couple of pages cover the first steps towards a greener event – setting objectives, drawing up a plan of action, and working out how to measure the success of your greener event.

The guide then works through each of the key aspects of event management: communication, venue and location, suppliers and caterers, waste, and transport. At the end is a set of checklists relating to each of these topics; they include questions you can ask yourself as well as potential suppliers and contractors. There is also an action plan template you can use when developing your action plan.

Remember: choose what’s relevant, realistic and appropriate for your event. Don’t try to do everything.

Remember, too, that this guide doesn’t cover everything about staging greener events – the ideas and examples outlined here are just a starting point. For more detailed information on hosting a greener event, see the Major Event Greening Guide: A practical guide to reducing the environmental impact of a major event.

1. Moxie Design Group. 2006. Understanding the market for sustainable living. Wellington: Moxie Design Group.