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The 15th edition of the Green Events & Innovations Conference (GEI), the foremost conference for sustainable events, was a sold-out success with over 350 delegates and an agenda with heavyweight speakers, innovators, and industry leaders in the global live music, sports, and event sector. I was pleased to be part of the event and its success, which took place on 28 February at the Royal Lancaster, London.

GEI was supported by Ecotricity and this year’s edition tackled the critical sustainability issues with a gender-balanced lineup of speakers who brought their knowledge, insight, and formidable passion to the panels and conversations.


The conference kicked off with the Adapting to a New Climate Panel and Boom Festival’s Artur Mendes boldly stating that “we won’t work with brands or policymakers who aren’t aligned with our values.”

While I moderated a double-bill session, where the first part focused on the Platinum Jubilee Pageant with its CEO Rosanna Manchando, looking at the sustainability actions and takeaways from organising this huge and iconic event. The second part was with carbon removal expert, Mark Stevenson from CUR8 highlighted some key facts in carbon offsets, saying that “Any new fossil fuel exploration is a gun held to humanity’s head.”

It was a powerful day of learning, and networking, jam-packed with inspiring insight and conversation.

The day ended in a special ‘in conversation’ session with Brian Eno and Jacob Collier, who explored ‘music as a social synchroniser’ which was the keynote. An enlightening conversation that saw Brian comment that “The arts are where we develop our instinct and our conscience,” and Jacob state that “things become possible as you start doing them.” We even got to sing with Jacob Collier, which created a moment at the conference.

Chartered Institute of Marketing -CIM – Sustainability Summit, 31 March, London

 

Spring has sprung and we are re-emerging from this global pandemic, which means real-life events are back with a wonderful bang! Between March and April, I have a few events coming up, including this Chartered Institute of Marketing (CIM) Sustainability Summit on 31 March in London.

The number of challenges we face is overwhelming at the moment. However, the environmental challenge (the biggest challenge) is one we can ALL do something about both individually and collectively.

If you want to:

  • Learn more about how you can become carbon literate, why it is so important, and the opportunities it brings?
  • Dive into and explore and understand the circular economy?
  • Hear all about the importance of effective communication, how to talk about sustainability, the power of authentic storytelling and the significant role marketing has in changing the course we are on?
  • Find out what initiatives and solutions are out there to support you and your business on your sustainability journey, no matter what point you are at?

Then come along to CIM | The Chartered Institute of Marketing which has a host of amazing people – Sue Fennessy, James George, Michelle Carvill – MA, FCIM, Author, Emily Laws, John Grant, Helen Hepworth FCIM, Phil Korbel, Jennifer Wilson, Purpose Disruptors (with more names to be announced) all eager to share and drive change for a better future.

Come and ask questions, get involved in discussions, and most importantly grow your sustainability network to help support you and your business moving forward. For more information and to book click here – https://bit.ly/35GkIAE

We all need to drive change for a better future. The United Nations climate panel warned us on 28 February in its major new report that it released, that climate change is upon us and humanity is far from ready,

Here Comes Spring

I can’t believe it’s March, I feel as though I have lived the year. Work has been full throttle and it has been exciting.

In January, I started as a visiting lecturer at Coventry University, teaching my book, The PR Knowledge Book to their second year degree students and am really enjoying it. According to The Guardian University Guide 2020, Coventry is ranked as the 15th best university here in the UK, it is the 1st for Overseas Student Experiences, based on student trips abroad from HESA 2017/18 UK data; is 2nd for Teaching Excellence according to the Times Higher Education UK metrics ranking 2017 and was University of the Year for Student Experience 2019, according to The Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2019.

Wondering what it is like teaching? Well it’s exhausting, as it demands all your attention and yet inspiring at the same time. It is inspiration to be in a room with the potential next generation of publicists. I am also learning, learning about the future and what will drive the next generation forward.

I have also taken on a few short term client projects and podcasts are popular. I have discovered that everyone seems to have a ‘podcast in them.’ Podcasts are popular because they are an easy-to-consume format for both business and personal topics. This year the podcast industry is going to grow even faster with a flurry of advertising activity and technological changes, which is great news for content creators and listeners. A staggering, 80% of people will listen to an entire podcast episode, or most of it, indicating that podcast listeners are very engaged in the content.

I was invited to moderate a panel organised by A Greener Festival for their annual conference. The session was titled, ‘Sustainable Sponsorship, Brands and The PR Greenwash Wobblies!’ and on the panel were Gary Pitt, Alive Activation, UK; Jacqueline Hochreiter, Budweiser Brewing Group; Adam Pearson, O2 and Zac Fox, Kilimanjaro Live.

During the session we lifted the lid on what impacts brands are having, who is pushing boundaries, what is the best practice, and where do we go from here. It was a great conversation where one of the main takeaways for me – was that brands need desperately need innovation in the sustainability space to allow them to keep making the positive changes that they want to for the planet.

And it is this last line that is going to be a recurring theme with my work this year – making the positive changes that they want to for the planet.