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The world is moving toward a more sustainable future. At this point in human history, there’s simply no alternative. Either we do this and do it fast enough to confront the crisis, or we face some pretty dire consequences.
It will take a concerted effort from every corner of the globe to realize true sustainability. In our industry, that means every brand, every agency and every vendor will have to pitch in. While that sounds daunting, we are thankfully getting to the point where sustainability isn’t just a feel-good cause—it’s also good business sense. Doing things in a way that generates less waste, uses fewer materials and consumes less energy not only makes consumers happy but it also makes the accounting department happy.
The truth is that everything we do is going to have to change as part of this conscious movement. Here are a few ways the brand experience industry is adjusting to achieve that goal.
Designing for perpetuity
Doing things in a way that generates less waste, uses fewer materials and consumes less energy not only makes consumers happy but it also makes the accounting department happy.
Perpetuity is the highest concept of sustainable design. It’s the idea that we can design systems and processes that can run forever with little to no waste or byproducts. Nobody has quite gotten there yet, but many are trying. The future we’re headed toward is designing product and service ecosystems that keep more materials from winding up in a landfill.
Rethinking our resources
Design is the core functionality to solve the problem. Design concepts and formats—in effect, the way that we conceive of events—is directly responsible for the way that we use materials, ship them, install them and, most importantly, how we dispose of them. For instance, lighter materials consume less fuel to transport and assemble. It seems like a small change, but for a worldwide provider that does thousands of shows, those little changes can move the needle in a massive way.
Let’s consider this worldwide provider for a moment, a major events industry player that has offices all over the globe. The sheer scale of the company enables it to play a unique role in designing a sustainable future for the entire industry. It builds walls for thousands of shows. If those walls aren’t reused, they wind up in a garbage dump somewhere. Instead, it’s about getting ourselves to the point where all materials can either be recycled, reused or broken down and repurposed. As a category leader, this worldwide provider has a responsibility to the industry and the world at large to think in this new way. It’s better to build 100 houses using discarded materials from a show than to send 100 tractor trailers to the landfill.
