Introduction

Events are sometimes, by their nature, high profile and transient, with both positive and negative social, economic and environmental impacts. This document has been drafted to help organizations and individuals to improve the sustainability of their event-related activities.

At the same time it requires organizations to recognize their relationship with and their impact on society and society’s expectations of events.

This document challenges an organization to improve its process and thinking to lead to continual performance improvement and allows the organization the flexibility to be more creative about the delivery of event-related activities without detracting from the aim of the event. This document is not a checklist or a reporting framework or a method of evaluating event sustainability performance. This document is intended to be applied flexibly and allows organizations that have not formally addressed sustainable development to start to implement an event sustainability management system. Organizations with existing management systems can integrate the requirements of this document into their existing systems. All organizations can benefit from the process of continual improvement over time (see Figure 1).

This document has been designed to address the management of improved sustainability throughout the entire event management cycle.

Additional guidance and information is provided in Annexes A to C to support its implementation.

The complexity of the system and the extent of documentation and the resources devoted to it are proportional to its defined scope, the size of the organization and the nature of the organization’s activities, products and services. This is particularly the case for small and medium sized enterprises.

The success of the system depends on commitment from all levels and functions, especially from top management. In addition, in order for such a management system to be successful, it should be flexible and integrated within the event management process and not just regarded as a component to be added on. For maximum effectiveness, its influence should extend throughout the supply chain, as well as the identified interested parties.

This document can be used to prove compliance, as detailed in the Scope.

Figure 1 — Event sustainability management system model for this document

1   Scope

This document specifies requirements for an event sustainability management system for any type of event or event-related activity, and provides guidance on conforming to those requirements.

This document is applicable to any organization that wishes to:

• a) establish, implement, maintain and improve an event sustainability management system;
• b) ensure that it is in conformity with its stated sustainable development policy;
• c) achieve the intended result(s) of its event sustainability management system;
• d) demonstrate voluntary conformity with this document by:
  • — first party (self-determination and self-declaration);
  • — second party (confirmation of conformance by parties having an interest in the organization, such as clients, or by other persons on their behalf);
  • — an independent third party (e.g. a certification body).

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