The events industry is experiencing a fundamental shift in how we approach sustainability. While environmental consciousness has become increasingly important to event organizers and attendees alike, the traditional methods for incorporating and measuring sustainable practices have remained frustratingly outdated and ineffective. In this post we advocate transforming how we think about sustainable event planning by moving from reactive assessment to proactive design integration.
Olivier's blog
Each year, as conferences, expos, and festivals wrap up, we see the same story unfold: a neatly packaged carbon footprint report boasting how many tons of CO₂ were saved or offset. The intention is good. The optics? Green. But if we’re being honest, much of this is theater—based on calculations filled with estimates, assumptions, and generalizations that don’t reflect the true impact of the event. It's time for a shift in focus: away from artificial numbers and toward real-world, human-centered sustainability metrics that prioritize infrastructure, accessibility, and behavioral nudges.
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EventMapStudio revolutionizes sustainability by integrating eco-friendly practices into the planning phase rather than relying on post-construction evaluations. This approach mirrors Deming 's industrial philosophy that quality must be built into processes, not merely inspected afterward. By embedding sustainability from the beginning, event planners gain flexibility to make meaningful changes, optimize resources, and create holistically sustainable events. This proactive methodology makes sustainability a foundational element rather than an afterthought, delivering superior environmental outcomes and meeting growing demands for responsible event experiences.
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Most sustainability reporting involves filing out long questionnaires after the event is over.
What if your sustainability reports came straight out of your operational data?
No more useless forms to fill out!
What if your sustainability reports came straight out of your operational data?
No more useless forms to fill out!
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It's one thing to help event producers design more sustainable events by providing a tool that embodies sustainability know-how and helps them transfer this knowledge into the event they design, it is quite another challenge to leverage this capability to communicate it to your audience and influence the event-goers behavior. We provide the Event-goer critical sustainability information at the critical time of decision making. EventMapStudio implements 2 strategies to modify the event-goers' behavior and drive them to more sustainable behavior.
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We sometimes get pushback concerning our point that building sustainable options, heuristics, and wizard in our software can influence event producers into building more sustainable events. Until we have enough time and data to publish our own results, this paper makes our point.
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Really interesting report by Ecolibrium on Green Travel for Events.
As always in the case of sustainability guidelines the challenge remains their actual implementations. How do you communicate these best practices to event designers? How do you ensure they actually put them into practice? At EventMapStudio we use technology to a achieve these 2 goals
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Remember James Carville's words from the 1992 US presidential elections campaign: "It's the economy stupid!" ?
In the event sustainability world studies have found that the main culprit for an event's carbon footprint is usually transportation. So how does EventMapStudio address transportation?
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What about using an event layout tool that incorporates sustainability concepts, and 1) makes sustainable options available, 2) reminds event producers to use them, and 3) tracks their usage?
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There are many sources for event sustainability guidelines. Most are published by cities or sustainability-focus organizations. We list a few here.
EventMapStudio includes and automates many of these guidelines.
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Many visitors to this web site find EventMapStudio by searching the term "interactive event map". EventMapStudio fits the term at many different levels. Let me explain.
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What about providing event producers with an event layout tool that incorporates sustainability concepts, and 1) makes sustainable options available, 2) reminds event producers to use them, and 3) tracks their usage?
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"If I'd asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses."
Henry Ford
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The EventMapStudio Spatial Analysis tool on the Event Intelligence palette aims at supporting event producers solving many of these spatial layout challenges. It provides the ability to select a category of map items, and set a radius around each of the items in the selected category to see the spatial environment of the items.
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Evaluating event layout software is complicated. Sometime extensive use is required because you can only identify weaknesses by using , trying, experimenting, and ultimately hitting a wall. But then it is too late..... Here are 5 criteria to evaluate an outdoor event mapping system BEFORE you invest too much time using it:
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We had the priviledge to be part of the first cohort of SustainableCincy, an international accelerator program for early-stage startups in the environmental sustainability space.
Watch our 5 minute presentation at the final event, keynoted by sustainability expert John Picard, to understand how EventMapStudio can help you drive your event's sustainability.
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Interesting articles in Rolling Stones Magazine about sustainability and music.
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