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This is a version of a presentation I delivered for the launch of ISO 20121:2024 on Earth Day 2024 and presents how the revision of ISO 20121 marks the start of a new narrative for events (and how engagement happens)

“Today is Earth Day, a day where we can remember that despite different opinions, cultures, lifestyles WE humans have more that unites us than divides, namely a shared home earth. 

Recently someone said ‘ We would like to be involved but our focus is on being the best and winning business not on helping everyone else’ 

This is not the first time I have heard this over the last, almost, 20 years of leading a not for profit that exists to create a sustainable event sector and it leads me to question if the idea of prioritising being the best rather than making a difference for everyone is becoming an outdated business model?

In 2025 Positive Impact Events, the not for profit for which I am CEO, will be 20 years old.

Positive Impact was launched to address the need to ‘drive industry change’ (one of the 3 benefits of purpose driven companies according to Harvard Business School Online).

During the last few months of 2023 my focus was on bringing to life a new way for everyone to be involved with the world’s largest climate conference (After all the climate is something that impacts us all so it makes sense everyone should be able to participate in the decision making on this subject).

Like many people I love a good Linked In scroll and I am always saving articles to ‘read later’, however a few things have happened over the last week that have left me questioning this habit as I compare it to what I’m experiencing in my every day life. I’m getting curious about how real change happens and here are 3 recent experiences that show its messier and more complicated than the nicely branding Linked In thought pieces!

In 2023, focus has  increasingly been on green wash, a behaviour that may be tempting for many when faced with the overwhelm of making a chang

International women’s day is always an opportunity to pause and ask ‘what actions am I taking or could I take to be responsible for gender equality’?

At the start of every year there are a few quotes I reread including:

‘We are a raindrop in time, what do you want that water to nurture?’

Accountability

‘We will be holding everyone to account…..everyone doing everything they can to address climate change’

The theme for International Womens Day 2022 is #breakthebias.

Less than 48 hours before writing this blog was my most recent experience with bias

Everytime I meet a dad of a daughter I look for an opportunity to ask: “Are you letting her boss you around?”

As a child I had a story book where a chicken runs around telling everyone the sky is falling in because he is hit on the head by an acorn. Reading this story I always felt panicked by the urgency that ‘Chicken Licken’ displayed as he ran around telling everyone with the goal of saving them all.

I have an agenda. Writing that statement I used to experience alot of meaning behind those 4 little words.

This International Women’s Day I’ve spent 12 hours in workshops, webinars, networking sessions etc in conversation about the theme International Women’s Day ‘Choose to Challenge’ and I have learnt alot.

In 2005 I launched Positive Impact because I experienced a need to educate the event sector supply chain on what sustainability was

I recently met up with someone I worked on a project with over 10 years ago. It was a sustainability project and at the time we faced significant opposition to the now obvious idea of delivering a sustainable event.

There is a popular meme on Linked In right now which I will summarise as being a picture of a cheetah beside the picture of someone with ‘ESG’ in their job title and the caption reads “which is moving faster right now”.