Oct 24th, 2022

Question of the shows

With sustainability top of mind, we collaborated with Routes World 2022, taking place immediately after IMEX America 2022 in Las Vegas, to ask one very important question.

Has sustainability become more or less important to you and your business since the pandemic? Do you have a sustainable travel/event policy?

Christoph TessmarI have the feeling that we are talking so much about sustainability that it's always on our mind. I don’t get many concrete questions about what we're doing sustainability-wise. We are doing a lot, and we communicate it so people know about sustainability when they come to Barcelona. I would say the conversations started before COVID-19 and it may have made it more intense. As soon as we had time to discuss different things during COVID-19, many, many conversations were around sustainability.

Christoph Tessmar
Barcelona Convention Bureau
(at IMEX America)

James ReesThe pandemic gave us time to reflect and plan ahead for sustainability. We’ve invested in this area and recruited a full-time sustainability manager who started earlier this year. As a venue, we’re proud to be officially certified as carbon neutral and we’re planning our pathway to achieve net zero.

James Rees
ExCeL
(at IMEX America)

Suzanne WatsonSustainability and wellbeing are now leading many of our conversations with planners. We’re having detailed conversations about food waste, carbon footprint and wellness breaks. I’m currently taking part in a sustainability course and we’re currently working on our sustainability policy. Taking small—but significant—steps is so important.

Suzanne Watson
Liverpool Convention Bureau
(at IMEX America)

Stephanie ByrdSustainability is continuing to grow in importance. We know that planners want to measure the results of their sustainable activities, so we’re currently recruiting in order to have the expertise to analyse what they need.

Stephanie Byrd
CORT Events
(at IMEX America)

Ramesh Ghir

Sustainability is obviously very important—Guyana is 87% covered by green forests—and we’re working toward making our operations more sustainable. We’ve engaged some suppliers and we’re going to install solar panels, as well as looking at some of the equipment we use.

Ramesh Ghir
Cheddi Jagan International Airport Corporation
(at Routes World)

Melissa TarrWe encourage the airlines that we work with to use the newest and latest technology which is obviously more sustainable. We also write a sustainability piece in our monthly newsletter focusing on innovation in sustainability to demonstrate thought leadership in the industry. Long term we plan to offset the carbon for our flights as a company within Wesgro and Cape Town Air Access.

Melissa Tarr
Cape Town Air Access at Wesgro
(at Routes World)

Gordon DewarWe put it at the heart of what we do. Back in 2019 it was already on the agenda, but with the recent disruptions it’s now at the heart. Largely the real acceleration has come from the investor groups—you need to have a plausible plan for decarbonization. The whole sustainable agenda, social, environmental, has been a huge generator of enthusiasm for us and we’ve linked it to the way we do business. Whether that’s putting carbon pricing into every capital investment decision we make, or understanding with every decision we make how that’s contributing to sustainability. We know aviation has a long way to go in terms of decarbonizing jet aircraft, but there is a really strong way forward in the UK in how we’re talking about technologies.

Gordon Dewar
Edinburgh Airport
(at Routes World)

Denise HillCOVID has been a real catalyst for change in our industry. There is lots of building forward, rather than just trying to build back to what we had before. That fits brilliantly with the ethos for Scotland—we have a major ambition for 2030 to be the sustainable destination for the 21^st century and we’ve been looking for those airline partners who can help us to make that happen. This week we’ve had some really interesting discussions to support that.

Denise Hill
VisitScotland
(at Routes World)

David PollardAt Tallahassee International Airport we pride ourselves as being the world’s largest on-airport solar facility producing that power and putting it out into the community. We understand there are other airports that are currently chasing that title but we’re going to continue to stay engaged with sustainable efforts and practices as we move forward with a strong eye toward things like EV charging and Advanced Air Mobility that represent the future of aviation, and how we can get in on the front end of that to work with our utility service provider and provide the right amount of power that’s needed as we look to those technologies of the future.

David Pollard
Tallahassee International Airport
(at Routes World)

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