A great event can have a great impact — it can change how you see a problem, make connections in your industry, and essentially, how you do business. The trouble is, most cities, venues, and event producers focus entirely on the event outputs and not nearly enough on the impact it has on the environment.
It’s hard to know where to begin in making an event more sustainable. Between all the travel, food, accommodations and supplies, events can use a lot of resources, but they don’t need to — that’s where we can help.
Explore Edmonton — the city’s Destination Marketing and Management Organization (DMMO) — has made sustainability a top priority in events. We are looking at events differently from the way we plan, prepare for and deliver an impactful event so we can use less energy and reduce the overall impact our events have on the environment.
It starts with a commitment from the top. Our city has committed to cut Edmonton's emissions in half by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. As the city’s DMMO, our role is to deliver on this commitment as it relates to business events and conferences in Edmonton at the two world-class, large-scale venues we manage. To underscore this important work, we have signed the Joint Meetings Industry Council’s Net Zero Carbon Events pledge and shifted our priority in events to sustainability. But these promises are just the first step.
It’s important to point out that as a DMMO (or DMO in other cities), we are a step ahead — we don’t just market, we manage events in our city. This means we have a role in both the operations of city-owned venues as well as filling them with happy guests. This gives us a leg up in knowing what people want in their events through our marketing work, and subsequently, being able to actually meet those needs (instead of just saying what people want to hear).
Overwhelmingly, event goers want events to be sustainable, which is why we are making this our priority. Unlike many other DMOs, we have a dedicated sustainability team. That means we have a team of experts ready to support and walk event planners from around the world through every aspect of their event to make it more sustainable.
Our work doesn't stop there. Edmonton is the second sunniest city in Canada with an average of 2,344 hours and 325 days of bright sunshine a year, and we are taking full advantage. One of our venues — the Edmonton Convention Centre (ECC) — is home to Canada's largest building-integrated solar photovoltaic roof. This means we are producing our own clean, renewable energy on top of our signature glass roof as the sun shines through. This creates about 227,000 kilowatts of solar energy every year — enough to power about 31 average homes. Atop our other venue — the Edmonton EXPO Centre — the installation of the largest urban rooftop solar array in Canada is nearly complete. It’s expected to produce 2.8 gigawatts of solar energy annually, equivalent to about 375 homes, or about one third of the venue's annual energy consumption.
Inside these venues, we are taking steps to reduce and offset our carbon output. This is exactly why we have partnered with Ostrom Climate, one of the largest and most experienced full-service, carbon management teams in North America to measure and offset event carbon footprints through our Carbon Neutral Events program. Through this program, our Sustainability team provides complimentary consulting and guidance to both reduce carbon emissions at events and offset the unavoidable emissions.
All of this work is putting us on the map across the globe. On September 27 — World Tourism Day — an international docuseries, Sustainable Travel: Where Next?, was released highlighting leaders and influencers in sustainable travel and tourism and how they’re protecting their destinations. The series features initiatives in cities around the world from Norway to Australia to the Caribbean, and of course, right here in Edmonton.
Watch the Edmonton episode and discover how we’re making events in Edmonton more sustainable on our website here.
We are extremely proud of what we have accomplished so far, but we also know there’s a lot more work to do. Up to now, we have hosted six carbon-neutral events at venues across Edmonton with another nine planned in 2022 and 2023. While each is a significant step, our collective goal has to be to make this the expectation. Net zero events are possible — we’re well on our way there, but we can’t let up.
Our promise is to keep building on the work we’ve done and to partner with others around the world who want to take meaningful steps and be part of the much needed change. It’s time we all started thinking differently because the impact we can have together is real.
