Low impact events

As electric vehicles slowly take over, we’ve got a bunch of transitional years where we’ll be looking for ways to minimise our emissions, while hopefully not compromising on the convenience that cars offer.

I recently saw an invitation to a corporate event in Brisbane city, where the ticket price included heavily discounted parking for attendees. That might encourage more people to drive than otherwise would have, especially since it’s in the city centre… so I wondered, if the event holder wanted to send a message about being climate conscious, what might they hypothetically offer instead of just discounted parking?

A few ideas:

• Offer a bus pickup from local train stations
• Hand out Uber passes (ideally for hybrid vehicles, if that’s possible)
• Cover the cost of EV or hybrid rentals
• Create a playful but incentive-based “penalty” system, where not driving is rewarded with extra dessert, and anyone who drove has to serve it up
• Or reward anyone who carpooled
• Discount the ticket price for folks travelling by public transport

Some of these might seem unfair, especially for someone who can only attend if driving is an option. But consider the kind of message a company like say, Patagonia (or some other climate champion) might want to send about an event it held – just an example here, I don’t know if Patagonia even holds events.

The message would be something like we’d love you to attend our event – to keep in line with our do-no-harm philosophy, we encourage you to find the lowest-emission method of travel.

But to be fair, that puts more responsibility on the attendee – as the event holder, you should really be leading the way. Here are a few more ideas to set the tone for the event:

• Consider your suppliers (catering etc) and do away with event waste like paper cups, one-time-use cutlery and single-use plastic
• Find a venue that is close to public transport
• Consider venues that are certified by the Green Building Council of Australia
• Encourage your sponsors to do digital marketing rather than wasteful on-the-day marketing like pamphlets
• Skip the merch bag filled with cheap pens, notepads, hats and other things people probably wont use, and instead opt for a less wasteful, more meaningful, and ethically sourced gift and – crazy idea – resist the urge to put your logo on it so people will actually use it 😀

That last one is a bit radical… think you could go to the effort of putting on a whole event and not put your logo on any of the merch?