Who We Are

Positive Impact Events is a not for profit which was established in 2004, with a core team of 3, to provide education and collaboration opportunities to create a sustainable event industry.

Since 2004 the world’s understanding of sustainability has advanced. In 2016 the United Nations launched 17 Sustainable Development Goals , which with their over 200 associated indicators are now recognised as the language of responsible business.

Positive Impact Events plays an active role in explaining how events can be used to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, in other words how events are a business tool and can be used to produce business results.

For the last 5 years the global community of over 300 Positive Impact Ambassadors have shared best practice through a social media campaign on Earth Day with a reach of over 2 million ( #CSRShareDay ) and #Shareapositiveimpact a year round initiative to demonstrate practical actions event professionals can take to be sustainable.

Positive Impact Events has consistently delivered resources to support the education of the event industry. In 2018 this included a roadmap toolkit supported by Society of Incentive Travel Excellence and an app to identify plastic use at your event supported by Monterey County Convention and Visitors Bureau.

The main obstacle Positive Impact Events continually faces is the lack of event industry leadership understanding the urgent need to act and having the courage to change their ‘business as usual approach’. To address this challenge since 2016 Positive Impact Events has been building strong relationships with the United Nations with the intention of involving the event industry in conversations with the United Nations and Global business on strategies and collaborations to achieve the sustainable development goals. For example in 2018 Positive Impact Events invited the Association of British Professional Conference Organisers to attend a United Nations Environment meeting on sustainability in the hospitality industry and create a report on what this could mean for the event industry.

During IBTM World 2018 Positive Impact Events led a delegation from the United Nations to present, meet association heads and build industry relationships. In 2019 at IMEX Frankfurt Positive Impact, supported by Edmonton Tourism , facilitated the first ever Sustainability Policy roundtable and delivered a report on plastics, carbon and food waste policy to a number of United Nations bodies.

By the end of 2018 Positive Impact Events had a memorandum of understanding with United Nations Environment and UNFCCC, an affiliate membership of UNWTO and agreements with UNICEF and UN SDG. The need for strong relationships to be able to ignite and facilitate conversations about the role of events being a solution to achieving the sustainable development goals became increasingly clear in October 2018 when the IPCC report listed a number of suggestions to address climate change including using technology for meetings rather than traveling to meet face to face.

In May 2019 the United Nations announced it would like to receive Acceleration Commitments from industry to understand how business and global government could take action to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The team of 5 at Positive Impact Events (with an office based in Manchester, an intern programme with Leeds Beckett University and a community of global ambassadors) understand themselves to be like a pebble in water, capable to making ripples beyond their size, so with funding from partners including IMEX , CVENT and Maritz they will submit an ‘Acceleration Commitment’ to the United Nations which will be a roadmap for the role of events in achieving the sustainable development goals.