By Louise Eyre, Conference Operations Director

Having achieved ISO 20121 Sustainable Events Management Accreditation for the inaugural UKREiiF in 2022 and in-person audit at our 2023 event saw us pass with flying colours with zero non-conformities.

We’re working to do more to ensure UKREiiF becomes more sustainable year on year, and one key element is not only looking at our own personal footprint, but also exploring what changes and tweaks delegates, sponsors and partners might be able to make to ensure an even more sustainable event in the future.

Here are some of our tips and tricks to take into consideration when planning your UKREiiF journey…

Travel

Situated quite centrally to the UK – Leeds is easy to get to from most major cities via the train – whether it be the East Coast Main Line connecting London and Edinburgh via Leeds, the CrossCountry trains from Scotland to the South West, or the Transpennine connecting East to West.

We’d even go one further by suggesting the best option on the train is via standard class – first class carriages hold less people and therefore add more emissions than a standard carriage, so it’s a great way to keep your costs and carbon footprint down.

We also endorse several cycle rides to UKREiiF – a Club Peloton cycle was joined this year by the UKREiiF Cycle Sportif which raised money for Yorkshire’s Children Charity, whilst Iceni Projects hosting a ride of their own from South to North to raise money whilst attending in a more sustainable fashion.

Whilst you’re at UKREiiF it’s easy to get the water taxi, shuttle buses or even walk to the venue from the city, rather than taking taxis to and from Leeds Dock. Details will be on the website of these options closer to the event.

Business Cards

Some people are now moving away from physical business cards – utilising LinkedIn to automatically connect or having a digital business card that can be downloaded by a QR Code, the most popular I’ve been seeing lately is Blinq.

But swapping contact details to potentially do work together is crucial so you need to ensure it works for you too – my personal preference is physical business cards, being able to make instant notes on them and ensure that I have a physical prompt to follow up.

One option here is to use an eco-friendly business card, such as using seed paper so after the business card is discarded (or planted) wildflowers can grow…hopefully alongside the growth of your relationship with new business contacts.

Exhibition and Sponsorship – Think of Re-Use

Without our contracts with sponsors we do have a dedicated, a charter if you will, that asks sponsors and partners asking for things like single use plastics not to be brought onto exhibition stands as naturally these will end up in landfill.

Instead we’re pushing people to bring giveaways which are sustainable if they do indeed need to bring them, whilst we’d also ask partners to try and design and exhibition area or stands so the items can be re-used. It’s what we do with much of the branding across the site, to reduce waste we don’t include things like the date on our banners and in areas where we can we don’t include logos that might change from year to year…this all helps with us being able to keep waste down to a minimum and re-use what we can.

Quick Fire Thoughts

I wont go into too much detail on everything but here’s a few other things you could do….! You could bring a waterbottle with you and fill up with water to stop any un-needed purchases of plastic bottles. Your business could look to cover the emissions of your carbon footprint by offsetting or perhaps planting a tree or two at your office. One of our exhibition stands allowed you to charge your phone/s – but you had to use bike power to charge it up.

Let us know of any other tips and tricks you have to keeping your carbon emissions down and creating a more sustainable event for all.

By Louise Eyre, Conference Operations Director – [email protected]