AIPC

INDUSTRY VIEWS

Focus on sustainability

SVEN BOSSU is the CEO of the International Association of Convention Centres (AIPC).

Safeguarding our collective future

The recovery of the organised events industry in 2022 has been remarkable, but we need to focus on ensuring we are sustainable, urges Sven Bossu.

According to research, the majority of AIPC members expect to be back at 2019 booking levels during 2023. Similarly, the outlook from the World Tourism & Travel Council is for the global travel and tourism sectors to return to pre-pandemic levels in 2023 and grow at a rate that will outpace global GDP growth, resulting in the creation of 126 million jobs worldwide.

Meanwhile, GL events, which manages over 50 venues, reported revenue of €220.3 million in Q1 – more than double the amount achieved in the same quarter last year. More specifically, GL events LIVE generated revenue of €125.2m, up from the pre-health crisis level.

This should put a smile on the face of everybody involved in the events industry. After two years of cycling through hope, fear and frustration, we are back in business. At the end of this month, at IMEX, the industry will rightly celebrate this resurrection.

PIECING THE PUZZLE TOGETHER

The first quarter of 2022 was also interesting on many other fronts, with a series of interconnected events profoundly impacting our communities and, eventually, our businesses. And it is not straightforward to put all these realities together.

The risk in this situation – with too many areas of attention – is that we lose focus of our core challenges: business development, attracting talent and making our business truly sustainable. It can be helpful to be reminded of these focus areas in a clear and robust way. During the 2022 AIPC Academy, which took place in April, Ben Wielgus, chief sustainability officer of Informa, explained the new rules when it comes to bringing their business to venues. They have implemented a Faster Forward programme based on three pillars: Faster to Zero, Sustainability Inside, and Impact Multiplier.

LEADING THE WAY

Venues are an important partner to the programme’s success, and this comes with certain requirements – from shifting to 100% renewable electricity to phasing out single-use plastics. These guidelines are currently being finalised, and venues will be informed of them in due course. However, the plan goes a lot further, with data collection being a key success factor. For every event, a standardised set of data will be collected, allowing us to assess the sustainability of the event and identify key areas for improvement with all the parties involved. While there are, of course, areas that require further discussion, the framework proposed by Informa makes the carbon-zero objectives, as outlined at COP26, very tangible and business-driven.

Venues did not wait for the framework to make sustainability happen within their facilities. Impressive work has been done by centres like the Scottish Event Campus (it aims to be carbon-zero by 2030), the Javits Center in New York (its seven-acre green roof allows water to be captured and reduces energy consumption by 26%), and Marina Bay Sands (its intelligent building management system has over 250 000 data points, helping to save over 7.4 million kWh of energy annually).

The power of convention centres is that the efforts they make within sustainability have a clear amplification effect, which goes beyond the facilities and the events hosted. Best practices are shared with other venues, allowing us to move faster towards being carbon-zero as an industry. And the same best practices are also shared on a local level, enabling us to move faster as a community.