Talking Regional Events with Meegan Jones from the Sustainable Events Australia
Hi guys, you’re listening to the Talking Regional Events Podcast.
My name is Linda Tillman, and on this show we talk about how a successful tourism events economy can drive regional growth and community pride.
We offer you tips, insights and even some great case studies on how you can create a sustainable visitor economy. Now let’s talk!
In this episode of the Talking Regional Events podcast recorded in 2021, Linda speaks with Meegan Jones from the Sustainable Events Australia.
In 2021 we asked event experts from across Australia about
Their top learnings from COVID-19 - the silver linings for their event, or for events in their region.
The biggest change they can foresee for the events industry into the future (something we should all be preparing for now!)
A recommended resource for event organsiers (such as a podcast, Facebook group, newsletter, alliance, etc)
Transcript
Meegan Jones:
Thanks for having me. So, I've been working in event sustainability for probably a couple of decades now. I started in Australia working on small community events. Things grew. Eventually I became the first sustainability manager at UK festivals, working at Glastonbury, Reading, Leeds, and all the big festivals. That was quite a big leap from, say, Peats Ridge Festival in the Glenworth Valley.
Then over the course of the last couple of decades I’ve specialised more in sustainability. We created the Sustainable Event Alliance when we realised there were starting to be more people working in event sustainability. We clustered together, and together, we've been the ones that have been driving this sector forwards. I'm a consultant. I'm working on major events around the world, and I've got training courses and all sorts of feathers in my cap.
Linda Tillman:
OK - so a ‘go to’ person for event sustainability.
Meegan Jones:
Well, one of them. There are a lot more people coming into this space. It's very, very fulfilling to see.
Linda Tillman:
The whole conversation around sustainability and events has been interesting during this period of COVID. We haven't had a lot of events, but those events that are starting to come back, in some cases they are being forced to use single use plastics. It feels like we've taken almost five steps back, which is really disappointing.
Do you see any kind of silver lining from COVID around environmental sustainability?
Meegan Jones:
Yeah, I can see a couple.
Firstly, to your point on reusables, we realised that there was a danger of going backwards on many of the fronts around sustainability so we called a global hackathon and we had 800 individuals from the events profession across the world come together and really drilled down into the issues. We had about 15 different working groups thinking about all of the different issues and challenges and where we could go.
One of the major takeaways from our working group on reusables was finding out the real truths about reusables and single use plastics and COVID. We produced a guideline document that can help events not go back to single use plastics because there is no reason why reusables would be less effective or more dangerous than single use - that's a complete myth.
To your other point, what do we see for the future? I think we've found out that we can do things without meeting in person. We obviously need to, but there's a lot of stuff that we can do either to reduce the air travel impact or in fact to expand the potential positive impact of our events. Those that have had to go to virtual events realise now they can probably add in this whole extra element to their events, or authentically be truly hybrid events, whereas before you would just sort of send a camera to stage and hope viewers online got something out of it.
The other thing I think is that now we've had this global crisis, we realise that in a crisis we can act – and we are in a global climate crisis. You will have seen on the news recently that the UN's calling for all countries to declare a climate emergency. If we can do that, we'll tip over into environmental areas.
I also think that now with events being potentially dicey COVID-full events or places we really need to be COVID safe, we need to have a real purpose for these events and a social licence for them to justify coming together – an authentic reason. So building more purpose into events is something we'll see as we go forwards. They're not just hedonistic or just commercial; there is some greater good to these events, and what better place than events as a staging platform for good?
Linda Tillman:
I love that. I think that's something that's certainly been coming up in the different networks that I'm in. My specialty is working with events in regional parts of Australia – smaller, often volunteer-run events, that have a really close connection to the place and community, but they also have those really powerful tourism and economic outcomes as well.
This period has forced a lot of those events to stop. I think that was necessary. I think we got to a point of almost being over events. There were so many events and for some of those events, they lost their way somewhat. You know, they just got so caught in that cycle of doing, doing, doing and didn't have the time to stop and think, Are we still doing what we actually set out to do at the beginning? I think it's a healthy pause for a lot of events to stop and reflect and review and think about the future.
Meegan Jones:
The use of community events can be such a great platform to engage the community in sustainability issues and bring that to life. I see that so much in those events that are doing that really well. Events are a gathering of people for a purpose. So yeah, let's have a great purpose.
Linda Tillman
Have a purpose? Absolutely. Now a bit more of a practical question, I guess, Megan.
I'm interested in your thoughts on what would be your top three tips that any event could action to reduce their footprint?
Meegan Jones:
I can think of two really strong ones which no event can go past, and the first is to be climate responsible.
That is really thinking about the greenhouse gas emissions impact of all of your decisions. That flows into so much; it's not one very simple thing. But I think that you need to understand what the carbon impacts of your decisions are, and how you can reduce them.
The second is circularity. You need to think about every single material resource that you're using and its full lifecycle - where it's going to go afterwards. We've all seen the exposés on the plastics industry, for example. As an event producer, your responsibility doesn't end at the back gate when you say goodbye to the waste. You're complicit in where those materials go.
So changing your mindset to think that you're the steward of the Earth's resources, and you really need to know and understand where things end up. Don't just wipe your hands of this. With that understanding comes good decision making.
The third, as I just said, is purpose. Thinking about how this gathering of people can be for the greater good as well as for your event’s remit. Look at how you can wind things into the programming and the experience of the event from an educational perspective. Events can be a platform to educate people on their impact.
You need to do it in the right tone. You can't be preachy. It needs to be fit-for-purpose with your event’s topic and your style and the context and the type of people and the vibe and everything. At many events, especially the community events that I know that you're in involved with, you know, these events are little mini villages, and they can be such a reflection of life at in the community: energy, waste, water, transport, food, all the things.
You can really build into the event experience the most sustainable way to do things in the region. Through the event experience, the way that people eat, the way that people get there, bringing to life the power side of things to help people realise where their energy is coming from.
I like to see event spaces as living labs. I think that's where the local Council, as well as innovators around sustainable living, can be brought into the event to enrich the event experience as well as provide logistics and production solutions.
Linda Tillman
Some of the things that I often hear raised from smaller community events is the concern around extra cost and extra manpower required. There's this mindset that to do things differently, even though we know we should be doing it to be good, responsible humans for the future, there's still this mindset that to do that – to manage our waste differently or to do this differently – it's going to cost us more and we need more people, and we don't have time to do that.
Sometimes I feel like that's just an excuse. There's always this excuse there that it's too hard.
Is it still too hard?
Meegan Jones:
Every challenge has already been worked out. The solutions are there.
Look in in terms of waste in most places in Australia, for sure it's not too hard. It might require a little bit of thinking and a little bit of extra effort, and a bit of knowledge as well. You do need a little bit of time depending on the event type and how you're staffing that event.
If you have a waste contractor or an event cleaning contractor, get the right one. As an events planner, you can never have all the answers, but as long as you've got the questions, hopefully you can get the answers through those service providers.
For waste, the waste company or the cleaning contractor or the Council waste services are the ones that should have the solutions, but you need to know the questions to be asking.
The same for food. Don't get the Dagwood Dog caravan that goes around to the local ag shows. Get the temporary food set up from the amazing organic grocer. If you choose the right food outlets, they've got the solution for you.
For energy, for example, choose a generator supplier who already uses biodiesel.
Some of it may cost a little bit more, and it does come down to priority, but there's a lot of waste in events – over catering, way too many things being produced for giveaways, and what have you. Have a look really carefully and mindfully. Being more resourceful can actually save some money, and then you can tip those savings into the other areas that might cost a bit more.
Linda Tillman
For anyone that does want to learn a bit more about how to make their events more sustainable, what's a good resource for them?
Meegan Jones:
Becoming a member of the Sustainable Event Alliance is an obvious one. All that information's on our website and the main way then to interact is we have a Slack group. We've got a regional Australia group. You can interact with members on specific topics.
We've also got a Facebook group Event Sustainability Wranglers Worldwide Chat. That's really, really vibrant because you're getting people from all over the world coming up with amazing discussion points. We've also got some LinkedIn groups, but they're not as vibrant as the others are these days.
If you want to do study, then obviously the books that I've written come from about a decade’s worth of sustainable event management. There's lots of resources, further readings, examples, photos, videos, downloadable worksheets, tools, guides and all the things there.
Linda Tillman
Excellent. So there's plenty out there for event organisers who are wanting to get more serious about the sustainability of their events.
Meegan Jones:
For sure. Actually in my book, Sustainable Event Management, A Practical Guide, I've dedicated almost half a chapter to the role of local Councils and what they can do to enable sustainable events. So flipping it the other way, if you're a community event organiser wanting to lean on Council, read that and you'll know what you could be asking your Council to do.
There's some amazing examples of local government really leading the way around the world. Hopefully your listeners’ local Councils can do the same. There are some great Councils in Australia that are that are really on the front foot with sustainability.
Linda Tillman
Oh wow. I'll have to check that out. Thank you.