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Why make your corporate Christmas party carbon neutral
There is a growing need for companies to take concrete actions to reduce their environmental impact, whether it is to improve their brand image, or because of government restrictions. But does it also apply to Christmas?
The answer is yes, let's see why.
If you have already started a path of environmental sustainability in your company, it is essential that your events are also aligned with these values: what image would it give a company that claims to be taking pro-environmental actions and then organizes an event without worrying about its impact?
If, on the other hand, your company has not yet embarked on a path of environmental sustainability, theChristmas event could be agood opportunity to take concrete action and start associating the company's image with sustainability.
The benefits?
- Enhance the company's reputation and meet the expectations of increasingly environmentally conscious consumers.
- To increase staff's sense of belonging to the company by involving them in the initiative.
- Align the company with increasingly stringent environmental regulations.
Interested in learning more about how to make your events carbon neutral? The Up2You Insight team has put together a free, practical guide full of data, information, and real-world cases to help you understand what a sustainable event is and how to make it happen.
Click the link below and download it for free!
Download the free guide
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The environmental impact of a corporate Christmas party: a case study
How much impact does a corporate Christmas party have on the environment? To give you an idea, we made an indicative calculation of the Christmas party of a typical company in Milan.
We considered a company of about 150 people, 70% of whom come from the same region where the company is located, and the remaining 30% from all over Italy.
As a corporate event, we assumed a Christmas dinner, with the possibility of overnight stay for those arriving from outside. Participants and attendees mainly arrive by car and public transportation.
For this type of Christmas event, we calculated about 5 tons of CO2 eq, 70% from travel, the rest from meals, heating electricity and overnight stays.
What activities have the greatest impact on a corporate Christmas party?
Clearly, there are different types of events and different factors that influence their emissions, such as the number of attendees or the distances to travel to the venue.
In addition to the practical case seen above, we can provide you with an estimate of the activities that have the most impact on an event, and a breakdown of emissions for these activities. Here are the results given byUp2You's analysis of proprietary data:
- 73% displacement;
- staff and meals 11.3%
- overnight stays 9.6 percent;
- consumables 3.5%;
- electricity 1.6%.
So what can be done to reduce the environmental impact of a Christmas event?
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3 practical tips to reduce emissions from your Christmas event
There are several actions you can put in place to reduce theenvironmental impact of your Christmas event, each with more or less environmental benefits. Taking the breakdown of emissions in the previous paragraph for granted, let's see what 3 effective reduction actions might be.
1. Choose an appropriate location
Your choice of location can vary the environmental impact of your Christmas event considerably. Here are 3 practical tips for making this choice consciously:
- Make sure of the exact number of participants and choose a location of the right size;
- check where the guests are coming from and select a location that will reduce travel (checking available public transportation to get there);
- Choose an energy-efficient structure with electrified heating.
2. Pay attention to the commute to the event
Travel to the event location is, almost always, the most impactful emission component, or one of the most impactful.
Here are 4 tips for reducing the environmental impact of travel:
- points participants to sustainable ways to reach the location, such as using available public transportation;
- incentivizes car sharing policies among invitees and invitees from the same city;
- for those who require air travel, first check the possibility of making the trip by train. Alternatively, organize the event in hybrid mode via web meeting;
- rewards the participants and attendees who implement the proposed solutions.
3. Choose the type of meals correctly
It's hard for a Christmas event not to include meals, snacks or appetizers. So here are 4 tips to reduce their emissions:
- choose light meal as your meal type, this way waste is contained compared to a buffet;
- ascertain the exact number of participants and respective preferences, such as by sending a questionnaire;
- Replace red meat with local produce or BIO products;
- Set policies for managing leftovers, such as making arrangements with local governments.
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Up2You's solution for making your corporate event carbon neutral
We have seen 3 reduction interventions and some practical tips to help you implement them right away to reduce the environmental impact of your event.
If, however, you want to make your Christmas party carbon neutral and associate your company with environmental sustainability in a concrete way, putting in place a few reduction interventions is not enough.
Effective as they are, in fact, these interventions must compulsorily tie in with other steps in order to really make your event carbon neutral: first of all, in order to know which reduction actions to put into practice, you must first calculate the event's emissions and identify the most emissive activities.
In addition, not all emissions can be reduced 100 percent: for those that cannot be reduced, you must put in place an offsetting strategy..
At Up2You, thanks to our team and proprietary technologies, we help you to:
- Calculate theCO2 eq emissions of your Christmas event according to GHG Protocol standards;
- Identify a tailored reduction strategy;
- Offset non-reducible emissions by supporting internationally certified environmental projects;
- engage people attending the event by giving them the opportunity to compensate for their presence at the event and to feel part of this initiative;
- effectively communicate the initiative through a customized communication kit.
Want to make your corporate Christmas event carbon neutral? Click the button below and find out how we can help.
