8.7 Sustainability and Inclusivity

Sustainability and inclusivity should color every aspect of event planning. Although events can have a wide range of goals overall, they should not do any harm to the environment, the local community, or the guests. Sustainability in event planning means creating events that reduce the negative environmental impact and support the responsible use of all resources. Good planners should take a step back from decisions and ask themselves if their ideas make the best use of each resource. The greater good of the environment should outweigh the needs of the event. Finding sustainable options throughout the whole planning process ensures that the resources are being used well at every turn, creating a green event.

The Benefits to Inclusivity

Creating inclusive events involves ensuring that no harm comes to any guests. Diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, should be part of every event plan. Events should be warm, welcoming, and inviting. A planner can make thoughtful and successful plans by thinking through how a guest will feel as each stage of the event unfolds, including being invited, traveling to the destination, checking in, experiencing the programming, and even after leaving the event. Ultimately, if guests don’t feel as if they belong at the event, they won’t buy a ticket, they won’t attend, and they may not engage with the brand/company in the future. Knowing the intended demographics, and designing the event to their needs should be the first step in each planning decision.

Corporate Social Responsibility

Events must also align with the corporate social responsibility of the client. The corporate social responsibility, or CSR, of a client encompasses their moral or ethical beliefs. Clients may be passionate about ethical labor laws, animal rights, or climate change, for example. All planners must adhere to laws that govern ethics, such as paying minimum wage or hiring vendors that have the correct permits and licenses to work in their industry. CSR takes those laws one step further. If, for instance, your client is passionate about animal rights, a portion of the ticket sales may go to the local animal shelter, the meals may be vegetarian, and an “adopt-a-kitten” booth may be set up in the lobby area. CSR may also be more subtle and cumulative over time. Major brands have begun to include a set time goal for when they plan to achieve carbon-neutrality. A long-term end goal in a CSR plan provides planners a target to work toward when creating events. The CSR of a client should also align with the CSR of the intended event attendee demographic. If these align well and are incorporated into many facets of the event, potential guests will be more likely to attend and attendees will be more likely to participate, to purchase secondary products, to donate funds, and to attend future events as repeat guests. A planner should fully understand the unique corporate social responsibility standards of a client before planning their event. This way the planner can ensure that as many aspects of the event as possible reflect and meet these standards.

Green Events

Green events are loosely defined as events that have a focus on being environmentally friendly. Green practices can range from recycling to energy efficiency to reducing the carbon footprint of the event. Any well-planned event must take into account its environmental impact. Green events, however, push one step further and run each event’s logistics through an environmental screening process. Planners of green events sometimes have KPIs (key performance indicators). KPIs for green events might include using 100% recyclable products, setting a goal that 70% of their guests use a bottle-filling station, achieving carbon neutrality, or reducing their carbon footprint by a certain percentage each year. Having KPIs associated with green initiatives provides a way to track progress and identify success. Several state and local agencies have set green certification standards, and planners can ensure that an event adheres to a designated set of standards in order to be “certified” as a green event. This certification designation might align with the client’s CSR standards, might be a KPI goal of the event, or might resonate with the intended demographic. Events can consume a great deal of energy and rely heavily on nonrenewable resources. For example, events might create carbon emissions during guest travel and generate waste with leftover catering items, printed programs, and unused swag. All events should work hard to reduce their resource usage and to make as little impact on the environment as possible.

Accessibility and ADA Compliance

Accessibility and ADA compliance not only affects event planning decisions, but also holds legal ramifications for some events. Accessibility is a broad term used to describe the comfort experienced by a wide range of attendees during their time traveling to and attending an event. For example, a guest in a wheelchair will have difficulty entering a space without a ramp, a situation that might cause them discomfort. A few questions a planner should keep in mind:

How difficult is it to hear in the space?

Are there a lot of echoes or background noise?

Is the event located in an area where guests would have to park a long distance away and walk?

Are the doorways, seats, or alleyways abnormally narrow?

Factors that might influence the comfort of individuals with visual, hearing, or mobility impairment, for example, must be addressed by event planners. The Americans with Disabilities Act, or ADA Compliance Standards, provide legal standards for accessibility. The ADA Act was established in 1990 to protect Americans from discrimination against a disability. The law also mandates that anyone with a disability has equal rights to employment, transportation, and public accommodations. The full law can be viewed on the ADA website.

Since it was passed, the ADA law has been amended to include accessibility standards in a digital space. This is important for virtual or hybrid events. It may also affect events that have online registration portals, event websites, or event apps. Digital accessibility standards include items such as easy-to-read text colors, alternative text for photos, subtitles, and hierarchy accessibility structure for websites. Including the digital space in accessibility standards accommodates individuals whose vision, hand dexterity, or cognition affects their ability to navigate a digital world. For instance, visually impaired individuals sometimes use a website reader program that will verbalize the text and images on a website. If an event website embedded a graphic that has key information like a discount code but does not include alternative text for the meta data in the image, the text reader cannot read it, and the guest does not have access to the same level of information as a guest who does not need to use a website reader. In this instance, the event planner might be held at fault for the inaccessibility of the discount code and in violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Severe violations can result in legal action being taken against the planner or client. The planner and the planner’s team are responsible for knowing accessibility standards as well as the laws included in the ADA Act.

Ensuring the accessibility of an event and the safety, comfort, and inclusion of all event attendees should remain of paramount importance for event planners. All guests should feel comfortable and secure, both physically and psychologically. In keeping with the core responsibilities of a host, planners should ensure that all guests feel welcomed, valued, and at ease.

Attributions

1. Figure 8.11: Earth Day, by Berea College, is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
2. Figure 8.12: First Disability Pride Parade in New York City, by Devra Berkowitz, is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.