Sustainability Award
BDC London – A Platform for Good
Sustainability at the BDC goes back to 1989 when the company established its charitable arm, the Morris Charitable Trust, to support those facing hardship or working to improve health, education and the quality of life in the local community in which it operates. Over the past thirty-seven years since being founded, the BDC’s activities in relation to sustainability have evolved into an integral part of its day-to-day operations, on a continued journey of serving its community, prioritising its people and delivering on commitments to improving its environmental impact.
Last year the BDC passed twelve years as a carbon neutral venue, releasing its Net-Zero target of before 2030 and sharing learnings with the wider industry and external stakeholders. BDC also set out to become a B Corp, presenting to the local business improvement district, Angel.London, on the benefits of doing so, which resulted in a collaborative network of SMEs in the Borough taking on the challenge themselves.
The business has reduced its carbon footprint by 66.7% between 2018/19 and 2021/22 and is implementing the support needed for events to be able to tackle their own emissions, through measurements to benchmark, clearer communications and working on a venue specific guide.
IET London: Savoy Place – Ongoing Sustainability Improvement
IET London: Savoy Place is committed to sustainability and reducing its environmental impact. From 100% renewable electricity to our zero-waste policy and sustainable catering options, we strive to provide the best events not just for our clients, but for the environment too.
In 2022, we became one of only a handful of venues to secure the prestigious Greengage ECOsmart Platinum Award. The award reflects the extensive measures we have taken to fully embrace environmental sustainability. We have also achieved the Silver Investors in the Environment Accreditation, and are aiming to achieve ‘Green’ status by 2025.
The building is equipped with energy-efficient lighting, heating and cooling systems, and smart building management systems to ensure energy is used efficiently. Solar panels have been installed on the roof to generate renewable energy, and rainwater harvesting is in place to reduce water consumption. And when it comes to catering, we source sustainable and ethically produced products, and prioritise local suppliers where possible to reduce carbon footprint.
Staff are continually educated in energy-saving best practices. There’s no on-site parking, and people are encouraged to travel by public transport to events, cutting out a key source of emissions entirely.
Informa Group – Informa Event Sustainability ‘The Fundamentals’
Nearly 400 events in Informa now measure and improve their ESG scores through Informa’s innovative, open-sourced Fundamentals system. It works with events to improve their sustainability across 12 key areas. That’s an improvement of nearly 400% in 4 years since launch and ongoing improvement in scores by events.
Lambeth Palace
The Lambeth Palace Estate is the home of the Archbishop of Canterbury and is the centre of the Archbishop’s Ministry. Lambeth Palace has a proud heritage of providing hospitality at all levels since 1397, from Archbishops setting up soup-kitchens at the Palace gates, bringing the Community together post wars and even entertaining royalty at garden parties.
Lambeth Palace has a well-established history of sustainable and environmental practice and leads venues across the United Kingdom and internationally in proving that historic venues do not have to choose between preservation of heritage and sustainability. Palace Public Occasions, the trading arm of the Church Commissioners (Charity number 1140097), was set up in 2011 as a not for profit to allow the Palace to trade commercially. We host approximately 650 events per year, and they are a mix of internal, corporate, charity and community.
Ethical and sustainable practices have always been rooted into our ethos over 900 years of existence. We are proud to be leaders for the historic building community in how we operate with sustainability at our heart. Our practices are guided by our central procurement department, our ethics department and also our onsite sustainability working group.
SLX – Holistic Company Sustainability and Social Value Initiative
Over the past 40 years SLX has been an established market leading technical hire business serving the Broadcast, Live Events, Theatre and B2B markets. We are proud to cultivate a supportive and caring culture for everyone who works with us, and the care we show to all our clients has allowed us to develop strong ties with a wide range of industries.
We have built a strong, deeply passionate and skilled team who constantly strive to push the boundaries of what is possible for events of all kinds. We ensure considerations for sustainability are embedded into our business operations and into our event life cycles so we are able to create sustainable solutions that meet both our, and our clients’ sustainability goals.
In May 2022, we were the first in our industry to win the inaugural TPi Green Award, the first to publish an impact report detailing our carbon footprint and commitments to the future and the second in our industry to gain B Corp accreditation, yet with the highest score.
Spaces at The Spine (Royal College of Physicians)
Spaces at The Spine offers world-class dynamic spaces for conferences, workshops and dining, as well as event production services to accommodate virtual and hybrid events.
The venue is housed within The Spine, the new northern home of the Royal College of Physicians in Liverpool, and it was launched in September 2021. Located in the heart of Paddington Village, Knowledge Quarter, The Spine is the healthiest building in the North West and one of the healthiest in the UK.
Sustainability is at the very core of the venue’s operation and day-to-day business, and sustainability strategies are an integral part of the venue’s design. In fact, The Spine has been designed to be one of the healthiest buildings in the world: in 2022, it achieved BREEAM Outstanding and it is on track to achieve WELL Platinum.
Its impressive internal biophilic sky garden reconnects people with nature and creates a healthier and happier environment that has been proven to reduce stress. Spaces at The Spine supports 10 concepts of the WELL Standard (Air, Water, Nourishment, Light, Movement, Thermal Comfort, Sound, Materials, Mind and Community), making it a dynamic, forward-thinking venue of the future and a beacon of excellence in Liverpool.
Sustainability at Hyve’s Global Natural Resources Events
Since Covid, Hyve’s Global Natural Resources Events Operations Team have put sustainability at the core of everything they do. This has resulted in their feature areas being totally transformed with their look and feel whilst using sustainable South African pine which is fast growing and is the only mainstream construction material that can claim to be almost infinitely renewable. The design means they can be flat packed with a lower carbon footprint in transporting and packaging. The versality of design has also allowed elements to be mix and matched across their past three shows meaning no waste or new construction materials being used. Other measures have seen over 10,000 sponsored water bottles not going to landfill, delegate bags created from PET giving an extra life to 147,000 plastic bottles, donations to local schools for unwanted materials, turning recycled paper into seeds and vegetables to feed 1,500 children and Sales Lounges being converted to classrooms for disadvantaged children in local Townships to name just a few!
The Venues Collection: Championing the industry on food and food waste
As a UK venue group, we are committed to educating and enabling our clients to make more informed choices and to make holding sustainable events as easy as possible. We were the first venue chain to introduce carbon labelling on menus so that organisers could make wise choices, and we are on track for this initiative alone to stop 60,000kg of CO2e from being created per year.
We believe that lots of small initiatives add up and that everything we do enables event organisers to run more sustainable events. The initiatives we have implemented include empowering and inspiring our chefs to get creative with food waste, launching our Meetings for Change DDR and 24hour rate, ensuring our menus contain at least 80% British ingredients, reducing red meat on our menus, focusing on plant forward meals and implementing CO2e reporting for each of our venues. Our venues have achieved the silver Green Tourism & Green Meetings accreditation and Venue Directory’s Green Accreditation.
The combination of these initiatives and more means we ‘punch above our weight’ and are leading the revolution in the conference & events world.
The Venues Collection has become the go-to in the events industry for easy, sustainable meetings.
Wyboston Lakes Resort – Room2Grow
The commitment of Wyboston Lakes Resort to sustainability has been widely recognised and accreditations include, Platinum from Greengage Eco-Smart, a Gold Award from Green Tourism and the IACC Gold Star.
These have been earned through a wide range of energy and waste reduction initiatives. So far, in only five months, 11,500 eco-conscious guests staying at Wyboston Lakes Resort have chosen to have a tree planted on the resort instead of having their room cleaned under Room2Grow, the resort’s new initiative offered to those staying more than one night.
Wyboston Lakes Resort published a 4-year Green Energy Roadmap as the foundation for its plan to become self-sufficient by producing its own green energy using the natural resources available at the Resort, which will help to achieve its 2040 Net Zero Carbon Emissions target. The total investment in the development is likely to be more than £5m.
Zero waste was sent to landfill since 2015 and the aim to ensure that no food waste goes off-site. All electricity used on the site is generated from renewable energy sources, saving more than 1,300 tonnes of Co2 emissions.
