Sustainability within your events team
We were lucky enough to recently attend an ARCA conference on Leading a Sustainable Workforce, and on Earth Day 2023 we thought now was the perfect time to reflect on the key points and share some of our learnings.
Chris Hine, environmentalist and CEO of Surfers Against Sewage spoke first, about some ways
out of the climate crisis, including switching from bottom line to ‘triple bottom line’ thinking; focusing on environmental, financial and social outcomes. He suggested one of our existing policies of offering to pay mileage to team members when they car share. Sharing resources will lead to a socially cohesive society, and ultimately more mission equals more margin.
There was a big focus on replacing the linear economy model with a circular economy. A circular economy aims to reuse resources as much as possible, therefore minimising waste and dependence on natural resources. This is important if we want to build a resilient and sustainable system that doesn’t further contribute to the global climate crisis.
Following Chris, we heard from Christopher Weavil, from local Cornish company Hertzion, who focused on how we make profits with a sustainable workforce. The ‘whys’ for a sustainable workforce were pretty compelling; they will represent your brand better, treat customers better, work harder and save you from needing to hire new people.
Christopher’s steps to building a sustainable workforce:
Recruitment - hiring people with purpose and precision
People Sustainability - this comes from having a dedicated company culture and norms
Encouraging personal development and offering growth opportunities through training.
Reporting dedicated to sustainability - metrics that are easily collected and measured.
Mechanisms and trigger actions for any issues raised by the metrics.
For example, Christopher spoke about one of their wellness initiatives which he calls the Weather Forecast. Each morning the team meets and lets each other know how they’re feeling, by choosing a weather from a scale, which can then also be plotted against work performance and tracked. It’s helpful on a day to day basis as well as for long term reporting.
Make it stand out
The next speaker was Will Rich, also from a local Cornish company, Wiska. In the context of a sustainable workforce, Will also spoke about having employee performance metrics. These can cover as many areas as possible, like efficient working, quality of work, teamwork and learning ability.
They have been incredibly successful at growing whilst retaining their team members, with very low rates of people choosing to leave, and even when they do - they often come back! They have created a learning culture and always look to build resilience in their workforce in order to keep it sustainable. By allowing room for team members to develop he keeps his workforce motivated - as his employees are getting promoted based on their success in their roles, in theory everyone should reach their level of incompetence (the Peter Principle).
Our final speaker was Jo Fairley, co-founder of pioneering organic chocolate brand, Green and Black’s. Jo spoke to us about collaboration over competition, and about sharing small wins in an authentic and honest way to build a trusted brand for both employees and customers. When it comes to sustainability within a workforce it’s key to ensure that your team members are committed to your company as time spent on recruitment takes time away from driving the business forward.
We finished with discussing the importance of understanding our carbon and social footprints, something that is now easier than ever to have an awareness of thanks to the help of online calculators. The panel all agreed that it’s something that should be being taught in schools and in workplaces, so we can all do our bit to spread the word.
A huge thank you to Lisa Lawrence from Truro College for inviting us along, and to the Future Skills Institute and ARCA. It was a wonderful day in a great venue and we learnt so much!