In the fifth installment of our "The Year of Sustainability" series, Fiona Pelham, founder of Positive Impact Events, tackles Goal 17 of the UN SDGs, Partnerships to Achieve the Goal.
What does the future of events look like? Miguel Naranjo, Programme Officer with the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat, recently stated:
“One of the last times I had the opportunity to speak to the global event community was in February 2020 at MPI’s European Meetings and Events Conference. At that time, I communicated that if we did not act to address climate change urgently, the future of events was set to change—just like the rest of society—very soon and not for good. Some of the feedback was that this statement seemed extreme. A few months later, our world has changed in the blink of an eye, a preview of the type of situations we may face due to climate change impacts. We want to invite all event professionals to champion climate action in their lives, in their companies, and in the events they organize, including by highlighting the difference that events make and can make in this regard.”
I’m willing to guess the question, “What does our future look like?” is one of the most popular questions within the global event industry right now. I’m also willing to guess that the majority of event professionals are only willing to hear or imagine what fits in with their ideal picture of the future.
In February, I was at MPI EMEC when word came through that Barcelona’s Mobile World Congress was cancelled and it amazes me to think back to the fact that myself and hundreds of other event professionals did not start immediately planning for the future which would catch us by surprise one month later. I’m now aware that it’s a human trait to only see what we want to see (i.e., ignore things that don’t fit with our picture of the world).
This trait has led to our industry associations and leaders ignoring opportunities to collaborate with UN bodies (in particular, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change or UNFCCC) for over a year. I can understand why; no one wants to think about the future of events being jeopardized by climate change (just as no one wanted to think of events being stopped due to COVID-19).
Beyond Day-to-Day
When trying to predict the future it makes sense to lift our heads up beyond our day-to-day and looking at the global, macroeconomic and geopolitical trends. It makes sense to listen to the commitments that the world of business is making in their dialogue with changing consumer behaviors. If you listen carefully, you will hear there is a framework which can be used to predict the future of events: the Sustainable Development Goals. This is also a framework for a world that works for everyone and that’s a framework I am sure most of us support as we have all experienced what happens to our industry when the world isn’t working.
In March 2020 Positive Impact Events launched a campaign to empower 100,000 #eventprofs to be in action building the future of how human connection happens. This campaign is centered around upskilling event professionals in the sustainable development goals so they can explain the business case for events within a global framework business, governments and others are following.
