Within Asia Pacific, sustainability and regeneration are a growing topic of conversation for tourism and events. In many destinations, there is already cross-sector participation from local Government, venues, hotels, tourism organisations, event companies, and hospitality who are ideating, creating and curating initiatives that are demonstrating collective action on climate change.

Accessibility is embedded in good sustainability practices in tourism and events. It is far more than just ensuring facilities for wheelchairs. It is certainly the anticipation and addressing of a wide spectrum of needs. Thoughtful insight on accessibility from Marian Lenhart at Skift Meetings

If there is one thing that 2022 has taught us, is that there are many organisations scrambling to catch up on sustainability. Tourism, events, venues, and destinations are ‘greening up’ but it begs the question, how do they stack up compared to others?

Carbon emissions from the meetings sector fall into three main categories - travel, waste, and food production. Yet we see little traction from the sector on how it intends to target and reduce these types of emissions on its journey to becoming more sustainable and meet the 2050 climate targets.

While the economic and social losses from the Covid-19 pandemic have been astounding, the next crisis facing the sector will be its defining challenge. The impact of climate change and how the tourism sector responds to increasingly savvy consumers, navigating climate reduction targets, understanding and demonstrating environmental mitigation strategies (with real evidence and data), and reporting on progress are just a few of the many issues the sector is facing.

It’s been a moment or two since I was able to find some clear headspace and finally write down some thoughts. The last four months have been a whirlwind of opportunities, lockdowns, presentations, a lot of late nights, with an equal amount of pausing while Aotearoa New Zealand tackled yet another outbreak of Covid-19.

Global industry association ICCA has announced the launch of a new initiative – Net Zero Carbon Events – to connect the events industry globally to the rapidly growing movement towards net zero by 2050. This initiative is hosted by the Joint Meetings Industry Council (JMIC).

When the IPCC Report went live at 8pm last night (NZT) it delivered one of the most sobering moments of 2021, that the planet will see an increase of 1.5 degree before 2040. In its worst case scenario, by 2025. Our only hope, a dramatic reduction in emissions, and fast.