DMCs & PCOs

Leading agencies commit to new green initiative
16/07/2006
C&IT’s Campaign for Change was buoyed by Eventia’s announcement for a new environmental initiative to help address the effects of climate change.
Speaking at the Eventia summer conference after a seminar on greener events, chairman Nigel Cooper threw a challenge to the events industry to offset a significant amount of damage being caused by carbon emissions.
"This is increasing the incidence of floods, hurricanes and droughts around the world," he said. "It’s up to everybody, especially industry, and certainly our own sector, to do something about it."
Eventia will be writing to its database of event agencies that include members and non-members. It will ask them to add standard wording to their client proposals that asks clients to accept a charge equivalent to one per cent of each programme’s cost, which would be donated to fund sustainable energy and reforestation projects.
"This needn’t be viewed as an Eventia-branded initiative," Cooper added. "I believe that the events industry collectively could generate as much as ￡4 million if we can harness the support of our clients – many of whom already have responsible environmental policies."
Before making his announcement during his closing speech at the Eventia Conference, Cooper had already secured the verbal commitment to support this initiative from 11 leading event management agencies including Grass Roots Group, Maritz, BI and P&MM.
Eventia will be exploring ways of structuring and administering the scheme in the weeks ahead.