Follow These Inspiring Leaders

My purpose in writing How We Gather Matters: Sustainable Event Planning for Purpose & Impact is to share my unique approach and lessons learned about creating sustainable events. I hope to equip event organizers with practical tools to do it yourself when it comes to running zero-waste, zero-emissions events that are inclusive and accessible to all, and I want to inspire more people to join the sustainability movement and revolutionize the future of events.

While writing, I was introduced to so many wonderful and supportive leaders in the sustainable events ecosystem who took the time to provide great content, feedback, and encouragement for the creation of this book.

One of them is Shawna McKinley a sustainability consultant and academic who tracks events affected by climate disruptions, and she’s seeing a pattern of increasing severity emerging. McKinley tracked more than 72 unique events, which were reported as disrupted by heat, wildfire, flooding, cold and storms in Canada in 2023. According to her research, outdoor special events (32%), sports (29%) and festivals (25%) were most impacted. Wildfire and smoke caused 74% of all disruptions, followed by storms (12%) and heat (8%). Most disrupted events were cancelled (58%). 29% were able to be rescheduled and did occur. Nearly half of reported disruptions were in British Columbia (48%), followed by Nova Scotia (11%), Ontario (10%), Quebec (10%), the Northwest Territories (8%) and Alberta (5%).

Natalie Lowe, CMM, CRL of The Sustainable Events Forum in Canada made the connection between climate change and the wildfire that devastated her hometown of Slave Lake, Alberta, in 2011 and vowed to use her platform as an events and destinations spokesperson to advocate for climate-smart events. “I don’t like to mince words,” she told me in one of our epic conversations. “I want event organizers to feel the urgency we need to solve the climate emergency now.”

Suzanne_ Morrell, MBA, SEPC, Blue Advisor of Creating Environments | STM Enterprises, LLC and the Sustainable Event Alliance grew up in Florida where people painstakingly grow orange trees then harvest and transport the delicious fruits to markets around the world. When she first witnessed gallons of unconsumed orange juice poured down the drain at the end of an event, she felt a great sense of shock and anger. “It was like uncovering a colossal scam with major implications affecting laborers, supply chains, and capitalism itself,” she told me. “I made it my mission to meaningfully address overconsumption of the events industry.”

Mercedes M. Hunt, PhD Director of Energy and Sustainability for Marriott International was motivated to join the sustainable events industry because of all the unsightly waste left behind at the end of events she attended during her early days in the tourism business. “I don’t come to your house and leave all my garbage behind,” she said to me with overflowing passion, “but events culture has somehow evolved to normalize mass amounts of wasted food, materials, and infrastructure transported from all over the world to die in the host city’s local version of a landfill.”

Mark Bannister Production and Operations Director for COP26 - UN Climate Change Conference came to sustainability through one of his large event clients, 谷歌 who required it as part of their event contracts. “Seeing that client-led desire for sustainability was quite a key moment for me,” said Mark. “Some clients tell me ‘it has to be exactly that and this, even if you have to make it from scratch,’ but Google’s approach to events and sustainability required us to do less, to adapt to the rough guidelines rather than exact specifications when it can lower the footprint.” He added that “seeing a giant, very image-conscious brand like Google come to the agencies with the willingness to compromise in return for sustainability wins” made him believe any event client could and should do so.

I’m so grateful to these and many other events industry leaders for sharing their stories and diverse perspectives with me during the process of writing my book. Please follow them and their amazing work this Earth Day and every day for leading edge thinking on events and sustainability.

Leor Rotchild is a nationally-recognized speaker, author, podcaster, and consultant with 20 years of sustainable business experience. His new book entitled How We Gather Matters: Sustainable Event Planning for Purpose and Impact hits bookstore shelves in May and is available for pre-order now . Visit leor.ca for more.