ISO 20121 - Sustainable Events
The Sustainable Events Management System Standard for Events Organisations
What is ISO 20121?
The ISO 20121 is a standard designed to support events organisations. This standard was launched to coincide with the London 2012 Olympics, and has gone from strength to strength as the value and benefit of a sustainable event has been realised.
An event that is well planned, secure, safe and sustainable can make a significant difference to an event’s stakeholders. Organisations interested in this standard are those involved in any level of the chain of sustainable events, from host venues such as exhibition centres, to conference facilities, hotel complexes, sports venues and all organisations that support the delivery of successful and sustainable events.
Benefits of a sustainably run event:
- Positive visitor experience
- Improved licence to operate
- Reduction in the risks commonly arising from events operations
- Inclusion of responsibly sourced food
- Reductions in overhead costs (e.g. energy costs)
How we can support
We have extensive experience in sustainability and sustainable events, particularly key aspects such as engagement with interested parties, managing value chain risk and understanding the fundamental building blocks of what makes a sustainable event. We can support in many ways, as we have done with some of our existing 20121 customers.
This includes:
- Training: we can train your team on the requirements of the standard and orientate them in the value of sustainable events and how to understand the standard to prepare to build approaches to become certified and to realise the benefits of a sustainable event approach.
- Gap Assessments: we can undertake a gap assessment against your current approach and feedback to you how aligned you are with the standard and the best practice and recommend gaps for you to close to improve performance.
- Full Certification Audit: we can audit you against the full standard across the full scope of your organisation that is designed to deliver sustainable events (we can certify any part of your organisation that is designed to deliver sustainable events e.g. hotel conference centre, stage material provider, leisure resort complex, exhibition centre, sports stadium, event catering operations).
- Advisory: for events organisations that want to get started in sustainable events management, but perhaps don’t require certification, we can work in a more advisory way and support the implementation of sustainable events systems.
- Value Chain: for organisations that want clarity on the suppliers in their events value chain we can offer a wide range of assessment services – for instance – to look for signs of ethical treatment from suppliers or focus on such issues as Modern Slavery which can feature in events value chains. We can work with your value chain to ensure that it is behaving responsibly and in accordance with your expectations and the expectations of your event visitors.
