Over the past few years, and particularly in recent months as large in-person events return, the events industry has been facing a reckoning of a sort when it comes to sustainability. Air travel, exhibit booths, catering — virtually every aspect of an event has historically generated a lot of waste.
Industry organizations are trying to change that, with many recently pledging to reach net zero emissions by 2050. However, in order to be able to chart a path to reduce emissions, event organizers need to be able to accurately measure the carbon impact of their events.
Just in time for Earth Day, isla, an event industry organization focused on helping events meet sustainability goals, has launched a new platform to enable event organizations to do just that. The platform, called TRACE, is designed to report emission and waste data for all events — whether in-person, virtual, or hybrid.
TRACE has been in development for two years and is finally available to event organizers to help them make more sustainable choices around their events and reduce their impact. Many people don’t know where to start when it comes to sustainability, but these types of tools and platforms will become invaluable to facilitate the process as the industry as a whole works towards its net zero goal.
“Reduction guidance is a key feature of the platform – the whole point in measuring carbon is to try and reduce it! We expect to see more footprinting tools leaning into this over the next few years,” said isla co-founder Ben Quarrell in a statement. “We’re really excited about the transformational capacity TRACE can have for the industry, and we’ll be continually updating and developing the platform around the needs of event managers.”
TRACE generates reports in real time, both before and after an event, and measures emissions from venues, travel and accommodation, production materials, F&B, and waste and recycling. TRACE is already being leveraged by various industry groups, including IMEX, The Meetings Show Momentum Worldwide, and Cannes Lions.
Selina Donald, Global Sustainability Director of Momentum, added, “Momentum will be rolling out TRACE to every market, to measure the footprint of our client projects across the globe. We spent some time researching the right software for us, and TRACE came out on top. It was important to us that the product was simple to use, relevant for the scope of our work and provided clear data analytics which will help us meet our goal of reducing our carbon emissions by 50% by 2030 from our 2019 baseline.”