Your Journey to Sustainability Certification Starts Here

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Our industry’s long-term sustainability is directly tied to our ability to make a faster and bolder transformation toward climate and social justice. This transformation will no doubt be challenging, and clear guidance will be needed for all of us to make the journey.

As part of EIC’s long-standing commitment to leading and accelerating this transformation, we are releasing an updated version of the EIC Sustainable Event Standards in 2022, and have made the current draft available for public commentary. The journey toward certification provides organisations, destinations and professionals with a framework and transparent process to set and implement targets as well as a way to set and achieve community wide goals, drive ambition, and accelerate change.

The EIC Sustainable Event Standards have been written through a global collaborative process with participation from subject matter experts in all sectors. They provide a strong focus on guidance and metrics so that event professionals, at all stages of their sustainability journey, will have the support needed to implement and measure sustainable practices.

Ben Wielgus, Head of Sustainability at Informa, said, “Participating in the standards has given us insight into where we can improve, as well as the reassurance that our work to date has been in line with industry best practices.”

We value transparency and excellence so we invite you, our valued stakeholder, to provide input. This ensures the Standards are an effective mechanism for accelerating action on sustainability and social impact in the events industry. From the earliest stages of this endeavor to rewrite and relaunch the SES, we aimed to release standards that are both ambitious and achievable. We hope to create a way for more suppliers and organisers to establish effective sustainability policies and plans, as well as recognise those who have made significant accomplishments in their sustainability and social impact programmes.

Key changes in the 2022 version include:

Introduction of a new Foundations programme that acts as a starting point for organisations to begin their sustainability journey by ensuring key policies, plans and organisational support are in place. Organisations will be able to assess their existing policies and plans to ensure compliance with the foundational elements, or, if they do not have them already in place, EIC will provide samples, tools and templates to assist organisations in developing them.
Introduced Integrated Property, a Sector type that blends the Accommodations, Venue, and Food & Beverage standards.
Streamlined criteria across sectors for greater efficiency and consistency
Adjusted point values to better align with effort, investment and impact
Strengthened focus on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI); Accessibility; and Climate Action
Improved Supply Chain Management criteria to be more practical from an implementation, documentation, and auditing standpoint

In the surveys, we ask for the following feedback on clarity, materiality/relevance, and examples of exemplary performance. Please complete the survey that best aligns with your industry role or area of expertise before it closes 28 February 2022. Links to surveys are below:

Option 1: Comprehensive Surveys (3 CEs each)

Option 2: Supplier Sector Specific Surveys (1.5 CEs each)
Note: These filter on a specific supplier category and would duplicate content from the All Supplier survey.

Option 3: Topic Specific Surveys (0.5 CEs each)
Note: These filter on a specific area of focus and would duplicate content from Event Organiser and Supplier categories.

Visit EIC’s website to view the list of organisations currently certified to the EIC Sustainable Event Standards. We hope to see you add your organisation’s name to this prestigious list.

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