About Us
As of February 2024, Positive Impact has a community of almost 2,000 global event professionals, over 40 corporate Head of Events, over 40 Corporate Head of Sustainability, over 160 SMEs with a Race to Zero commitment, over 5 memorandums of understanding with United Nations bodies.
We are the only event sector body to be a Race to Zero Accelerator, UN SDG Action mobiliser and to have education certified by the world’s largest and leading CPD accreditation working across all sectors, so our education is accessed by heads of marketing, HR and sustainability.
For over 15 years not for profit Positive Impact have been providing engagement, collaboration and education to create a sustainable event industry. You could describe Positive Impact as the ‘critical friend’ of the global event sector.
Our funding comes from everywhere and nowhere, and every penny, cent or yen is used to advance the event sector so every time an event happens the UN Sustainable Development Goals are advanced and events are recognised as ensuring 'participation and inclusion in decision making’ (UN SDG16).
This is a timeline of Positive Impact's journey and the creation of a sustainable event industry. It reflects initiatives from:
The United Nations
Positive Impact
CEO Fiona Pelham
Key developments in the creation of a sustainable event industry.
Enabling a sustainable event industry with ISO 20121:2024
On 22nd April, Positive Impact celebrated Earth Day with the launch webinar for the revised ISO 20121:2024. This was accompanied by a virtual engagement and exhibition area which was available for a month.
To celebrate Earth Day 2024 over 300 people gathered online for the launch webinar for the revised ISO 20121:2024.
Contributions were made to the webinar from: ISO Secretary General, International Olympic Committee Head of Legacy, UNFCCC Senior Director, Operations Coordination, Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, UNICEF UK, The Centre of Sport and Human Rights, The Race to Zero, Positive Impact Events and Our 2050 World.
Following the webinar a virtual engagement and exhibition area launched and was available until May 22nd. This area:
Supported visitors to understand the ISO 20121:2024 revision process and outcomes
Enabled them to relisten to the launch webinar
Empowered them to take their first steps with ISO 20121 by providing resources, case studies and more
Celebrating Earth Day 2023 by sharing best practice
On 22nd April, the Positive Impact community was invited to celebrate Earth Day and share best practice by accessing our Share a Positive Impact toolkit.
On 22nd April, the Positive Impact community was invited to celebrate Earth Day and share best practice by:
Accessing our Share a Positive Impact toolkit and support the advancement of a sustainable event sector
Learning how to demonstrate self assessment to ISO 20121
Also taking place in celebration of Earth Day was our 48 hour educational online event Sustainability Strategy Setting for Events which is accredited for CPD education. This course provides 13 CPD hours.
Investing in the planet on Earth Day through a sustainable event strategy
Read this report from Earth Day 2022 where Positive Impact ran a 24hr global initiative exploring how to invest in the planet and advance corporate sustainability goals through a sustainable event strategy.
This Earth Day, Positive Impact ran a 24 hour global initiative exploring how to invest in the planet and advance corporate sustainability goals through a sustainable event strategy.
This Earth Day event was designed to meet the needs of corporate event planners or corporate heads of sustainability. In this event, they were able to:
Participate in workshops led by UN bodies, corporate peers and sustainability experts
Learn how to implement global best practice frameworks (ISO 20121) and make recognised carbon commitments (UNFCCC Race to Zero)
Gain knowledge on how to deliver a sustainable event strategy which aligns with your corporate sustainability goals
Who attended?
19 Global Corporate Heads of Sustainability or Events registered for Earth Day 2022; these corporates included:
Deloitte
Bloomberg
Amex
HP
Bodyshop
T-Mobile
Reckitt
Clarivate
RSPB
Interface
SAP UK
Pure storage
Foresight Group LLP
Shell
What was delivered?
Throughout the Earth Day event; attendees were given the opportunity to attend live panels, networking session and explorations into the future of human connection as well as given access the wider range of pre-recorded workshops and short clips that cover a wider range of sustainability topics which align with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Positive Impact delivered the following 5 live panels throughout the Earth Day event to support corporate event planners and heads of sustainability to advance their sustainability goals:
Investing in a net zero carbon event future: update from Japan - with the Japan Climate Initiative and Cerespo, an event company who is leading in event sustainability in Japan.
The Future of Events: Investing in a Net Zero Carbon Strategy for Your Event - With Climate Action for Associations, The Race to Zero Accelerator Programme, session facilitated by James Latham founder The Iceburg.
The Future of Events: How Event Grads are Making a Commitment to Shape the Future of the Event Sector -with Event Grads, session facilitated by Martin Fullard Editorial Director at Mash Media
The future of events: How you can use event strategy to advance corporate sustainability commitments and the UN SDGs - with UN Global Compact Network UK, Interface and RX.
The Future of Measurement and Events- with Positive Impact’s Team
Celebrating Earth Day 2021: Report
This report provides a summary of Positive Impact’s Earth Day celebrations and the many opportunities to participate throughout the day in advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
SUMMARY REPORT
This report provides a summary of Positive Impact’s Earth Day 2021 celebrations and the many opportunities to participate throughout the day in advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Introduction
Earth Day is held annually on the 22nd of April in order to demonstrate global support for environmental protection. In recent years, Earth Day has become an opportunity to come together to tackle climate change, through sharing initiatives and ways to take action.
This Earth Day marked a historic moment for climate action, as President Joe Biden invited 40 world leaders to the Global Leaders’ Summit on Climate. During the summit, Biden unveiled an ambitious pledge to cut US carbon emissions in half by 2030.
WHAT WAS POSITIVE IMPACT'S APPROACH ?
As Biden stated, we are in a “decisive decade” to fix global warming. Time is running out to respond to the climate challenge. At current, there is a gap in the credibility of the event sector's communications because we do not have a science-based carbon target. Therefore, Positive Impact used Earth Day 2021 as an opportunity to close this gap and align the event sector with the many government and company announcements made that day.
Our focus was to raise £30,000 ($45,000/ €35,000) of funding to deliver stakeholder engagement so the event sector can create a Climate Action Framework, under the auspicies of UNFCCC Secretariat.
We created a number of opportunities for individuals, our ambassadors, companies and associations to participate in supporting the low-carbon future of the event sector and advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals:
- Joining our community of over 1,400 ambassadors.
- Hosting an hour of social media sharing examples of sustainability best practices.
- Joining a roundtable on Plastic & the Event Sector with UNEP
- ‘Pay as much as you can afford’ for a tweet celebrating your personal action to be sustainable.
- £800 ($1100/€930) for a company/ destination/ association tweet celebrating your personal action to be sustainable.
- £100 ($135/ €110) one-off payment for EDUCATE.
Each of the above is an opportunity for ACTION. Why? Because throughout Earth Day we communicated this message:
"The time for conversation and consideration is over. The time for target setting and budget allocating is now. How can you take action that will make a difference?"
20 Hosting Hours of Sharing Sustainability Best Practice
This Earth Day, the #eventprof community came together to tell the story of the power of events in achieving the UN SDGs. Over 20 hours, 14 hosts took to social media and reached an online community of 2 million using the hashtags #eventscreatchange and #earthday.
At the beginning and end of each hour, we encouraged hosts to share the importance of the event sector coming together to create a Climate Action Framework, under the auspices of UNFCCC Secretariat. Hosts shared a link to enable everyone to get involved.
> EXAMPLES
Download a booklet of the Earth Day best practice examples - this is a great resource if you are looking to take learnings from other event professionals on how to implement the SDGs at your events.
> THANK YOU TO ALL OF OUR HOSTS:
- Fiona Pelham - @FionaPelham
- Positive Impact - @Pievents
- Cerespo - @Pieventsjapan
- IMEX - @IMEX_Group
- Italian Special Occasions - @ISODMC
- Martiz Global Events - @AmyKramer
- Martiz Global Events - @RachaelMRiggs
- Streamline Events - @Streamlinevents
- Michele Fox - @Michelefoxnyc
- Emili Subtil - @Emili942
- Thrive Meetings - @tstuckrath
- The EAIE - @TheEAIE
- Messukesus - @BlomsterPaula
- Soundings Connect - @SoundingsTalent
Supporting the creation of a Climate Action Framework for the Event Sector
Events bring people together and enable human interaction. In a post COVID-19 world, there is the opportunity for a new narrative on the important role of events - Governments and businesses could recognise the global event sector as a strategic enabler for participation and inclusion in decision-making (advancing SDG 16). *
To make this new narrative a reality for years to come, we need to take action to create a carbon target and reduction framework so future generations can still attend events.
Positive Impact and UNFCCC (the UN Body for Climate Change) are ready to support stakeholder engagement across the global event sector so everyone’s voice can be heard and all our initiatives can be counted.
There is a small funding gap of £30,000 ($45,000/ €35,000) to be closed and so our approach on Earth Day was a grassroots campaign to close this gap.
> Throughout Earth Day we raised £585 towards our target. This included £385 of 'pay as you feel' donations and £200 from our EDUCATE product.
> We also created a £800 ($1100/€930) opportunity for companies/ associations/ destinations to fund the framework, however we received no purchases.
Who did we reach out to?
- We empowered our ambassador community with a toolkit to ask companies marketing their sustainability initiatives for funding
- We reached out directly to 47 associations with this letter.
- We engaged with over 30 corporate companies across Linkedin and Twitter throughout Earth Day asking them to support the framework
Plastic and the Event Sector with UNEP
During Earth Day, Positive Impact hosted a roundtable with UNEP exploring best practices surrounding plastic reduction which are important to advance the Sustainable Development Goals.
UNEP explained their plastic initiative and Positive Impact provided attendees with resources on how to address the role of plastic at their event.
Click to download the full report.
A summary of Earth Day: An interview with our CEO, Fiona Pelham
Listen to an interview with Positive Impact's CEO Fiona Pelham in which she provides a summary of what Positive Impact achieved this Earth Day and why Earth Day is so important for the event sector to build its reputation.
Earth Day 2021 is over, how can I still commit to taking action?
There are many opportunities available for you to contribute to the creation of a sustainable event industry all year round:
Exploring the connections between human interaction and restoring our Earth
Aligned with the theme of Earth Day 2021: Restore Our Earth, Positive Impact invited corporate event professionals to join their peers to explore the connections between human interaction and restoring our Earth.
Explore to Restore: Earth Day
Aligned with the theme of Earth Day 2021: Restore Our Earth, Positive Impact invited corporate event professionals to join their peers to explore the connections between human interaction and restoring our Earth.
On Thursday 22nd April (Earth Day) participants took part in facilitated networking, experiments, roundtables with UN bodies and engaged with on-demand recorded content.
Participants in Explore #4 will gain:
The ability to talk to their CEOs in strategic and impactful terms.
New ideas of and experiences of practices which could be used at your face to face, virtual or hybrid events to champion gender equality and facilitate human interaction.
Understanding and experience of contributing to UN policies which will impact future strategy of global governments and business.
There is £250 (approx $340 or €290) overhead per person that we can not avoid. Therefore in addition to the requirement to be a corporate event planner to attend this event there is a minimal administration fee.
Save with an all access pass, just £400 for all Explore events in 2021 (normal price per event is £250).
Explore is an impactful event series
Don’t take our word for it, hear from previous attendees:
“At Explore, I learnt new and innovative ways of transforming myself and my organisation to connect, alongside providing input into these explorations too. I think being innovative and explorative is important to keep up with the digital pace of the event industry that is highly affected by the Covid 19 situation”
— Elena Staszak, Partner Communication & Event Lead, Microsoft
Your explorations can happen in 4 formats:
Networking - a chance to meet your fellow explorers and get to interact with them during facilitated networking.
Experiments - join a range of hosts who will be leading YOU through a series of 20-minute experiments exploring the power of female leadership and human interaction.
Roundtables - contribute your ideas to frameworks, policies, white papers and other documents which will be used by United Nations bodies and corporate sustainability leaders. These sessions will be facilitated by high level partners so YOUR voice will be heard.
On Demand - for the times in the 24 hours when you are not networking, exploring or contributing you have the chance to access learning materials which will translate the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals into practical guidance for event professionals.
Before 22nd April, you will be given access to a private LinkedIn group which will guide you through the day’s experiments.
FAQ
What is the agenda?
The agenda will continue to be updated until the day before the event and will be found in the LinkedIn private group that will be launched before 22nd April. You can understand more about the content of the day above. To understand what the Explore #4 agenda will be like, view the Explore #2 agenda. The Explore #4 agenda structure will be similar to this.
Why am I paying £250?
Positive Impact is a not for profit, this means every penny spent with us is used to make a difference. Following each Explore, a report is created and shared with the wider industry. To understand the exact breakdown of how your registration fee will be spent, watch Bec’s experiment in transparency from Explore #1.
Will this help me progress my career?
Yes. Both the content created and how this content is delivered is done with the intention of empowering and enabling you to have a strategic conversation with your CEO so you can demonstrate the value of your role in terms they will understand.
Asking who will be responsible for future generations being able to meet?
In the lead up to Earth Day on 22nd April 2021, Positive Impact asked the question: This Earth Day, will you be responsible for future generations being able to meet?
In the lead up to Earth Day on 22nd April 2021, Positive Impact asked the question:
This is the video from the home page for our Earth Day 2021 campaign:
Anybody who was ready to take immediate action then had the chance to support a fundraising initiative to create a Climate Action Framework:
Be responsible for future generations being able to meet
On June 7th will you give your input to a virtual stakeholder engagement facilitated by UNFCCC so the event sector can have a Climate Action Framework launched at COP26?
Between Earth Day and Word Environment Day, Positive Impact is fundraising £30,000 ($45,000/ €35,000) so stakeholder engagement can happen.
We need to take action now, or the event industry will be left behind in the transformation to a low-carbon future.
There were multiple opportunities to get involved:
You can make a difference by using your voice to champion a sustainable event industry along with our global community of over 1,400 ambassadors (join our ambassador community today).
The immediate support we need is fundraising so we have created a number of opportunities for you to market yourself and support the future event sector.
In addition, any resources you purchase from us will fund the carbon target. We have a number of opportunities for you to educate yourself and support the future event sector.
Ways to support the campaign and raise funds included:
Celebrate my personal action to be sustainable
From £5.00Pay as much as you can afford
Between Earth Day and World Environment Day, we will post a tweet using your words, to celebrate your personal action to be sustainable.
Celebrate a company, association or destination's action to be sustainable
£800.00Between Earth Day and World Environment Day, we will post a tweet using your words, to celebrate your company, association or destination’s action to be sustainable. On Earth Day 2020, our campaign reached an online community of over 1.5 million.
Please note: Your sustainable action will hopefully be shared in a press release (this is dependent on when you sign up, so the sooner the better!). We may also post your sustainable action on LinkedIn and Instagram.
Educate myself on the UN SDGs
£100.00Educate is a product relevant for anyone who would like to be empowered to progress the Sustainable Development Goals. For a one-time payment of £100 (€110/ $135) you will get access to over 30 hours of content from global thought leaders which you can consume in your own time.
Corporate brands were invited to schedule a one to one conversation with us for further resources and initiatives to be a part of.
We also had a series of audio FAQ for anybody who wondered why they needed to be responsible for future generations to meet:
The Earth Day Agenda
Join our global #eventprofs community for 24 hours on Thursday 22nd April as together we explore how events can be used to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Host an hour of social media sharing your sustainability best practice
Starting at 6am BST on April 22nd this Earth Day, a global conversation will take place on Twitter via the hashtags #EventsCreateChange and #EarthDay.
Positive Impact and UNEP invite you to a roundtable to explore how to address the role of plastic in the event sector
Date: 22nd April 2021
Time: 9:45am (GMT), 10:45am (CET), 17:45pm (JST)
This roundtable will be an exploration into best practices surrounding plastic reduction which will be important to advance the Sustainable Development Goals.
UNEP will explain their plastic initiative and Positive Impact will provide attendees with resources on how to address the role of plastic at their event.
Why is this an important topic on Earth Day?
“humans have produced around 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic since the 1950s and that figure is predicted to rise to around 34 billion tonnes by 2050… Humanity dumps its own combined weight in plastics annually into ecosystems. That’s 300 million tonnes every year choking waterways and seas, clogging streets, harming wildlife and, ultimately, doing serious damage to public health.’
- United Nations Environment Programme
If plastic consumption was address this would advance many of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, these are:
SDG 3, Good Health
SDG 13, Climate Action
SDG 14, Life Below Water
SDG 15, Life on Land
How does the role of plastic in the event sector contribute to this global production of plastic?
How can the event sector address their consumption advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals?
Sharing examples of how events can be used to achieve the UN SDGs for #EarthDay 2020
The Positive Impact Events team and the global #eventprofs community shared examples of how events can be used to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
The global #eventprofs community joined Positive Impact Events and shared examples of how events can be used to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Starting at 6am BST on April 22nd this #earthday, this global conversation took place on Twitter and via the hashtags #eventscreatechange and #earthday across social media channels.
Watch our Earth Day webinar below where we discuss the future of the event industry and hear about our campaign to empower 100,000 #eventprofs to be in action building the future of how human connection happens.
Hear from a panel of industry leaders including:
Amy Kramer, Market and Product Innovation Leader, Maritz Global Events
Fiona Pelham, CEO, Positive Impact Events
Josh Adams, Industry Relations Strategist, streamlinevents, inc
Judy Elvey, Director of Marketing, Event Cloud Europe. Cvent, Inc
Celebrating Earth Day with #CSRshareDay
Positive Impact Events curated a 24 hour collaboration by event professionals around the world to share best practice examples of sustainable events on social media.
Positive Impact Events curate a 24 hour collaboration by event professionals around the world to share best practice examples of sustainable events on social media.
Celebrating Earth Day with #CSRshareDay
Positive Impact Events curated a 24 hour collaboration by event professionals around the world to share best practice examples of sustainable events on social media.
Positive Impact Events curate a 24 hour collaboration by event professionals around the world to share best practice examples of sustainable events on social media.
Celebrating Earth Day with #CSRshareDay
Positive Impact Events curated a 24 hour collaboration by event professionals around the world to share best practice examples of sustainable events on social media.
Positive Impact Events curate a 24 hour collaboration by event professionals around the world to share best practice examples of sustainable events on social media.
Celebrating Earth Day with #CSRshareDay
Positive Impact curated a 24 hour collaboration by event professionals around the world to share best practice examples of sustainable events on social media.
Positive Impact Events curate a 24 hour collaboration by event professionals around the world to share best practice examples of sustainable events on social media.
