Sustainable Events Management - Term Paper Example

Sustainable events management Introduction Sustainable event management is a process that is used to design, produce and run a program of a specific concern. It focuses on areas such as environmental, social, cultural or economic orientation. Event seventeen is an example of a sustainable management platform of organizing events in order to enhance style, sustainability and substance. Certainly the management of the event is often hectic, cumbersome and technically, this event company offers a solution in areas of enhancing event competitiveness. The company is driven by innate values of sustainability, creativity and transparency. In addition, it strives to ensure that the event they organize is outstanding, innovative and a clear manifestation of talent in action. There are numerous reasons for choosing this event, firstly the Seventeen are known for creating events that are environmental friendly and ethical. While other companies may organize good events, the issue of environmental awareness has always been left out. In addition, creation of events has been marred with much monotony of activities that has over time characterize majority of events organizers. The Seventeen offers a creative and innovative approach to events to the companies. Certainly this makes the company attractive to most companies. In addition, the Seventeen ability to offer positive communication channels that can deliver beyond marketing sphere makes the event company worthy. Triple Bottom Line theory (BTL) is a major theory that informs the operations of the Seventeen company. It was suggested by John Elkington in 1994; it is an accounting theory that covers social, financial and environmental spheres (Raj & Walters 2013). The goal of the theory focuses on interrelationships of productivity that is sustainable and environmentally-friendly. The concept of sustainability in commerce and finance has been a huge challenge that face existing companies. The environmentalists and social advocates have continued to subject monetary and material profits to sustainability. Event managers have recently started paying attention to the importance of enhancing sustainability in events designs. Jones (2010) agrees that with theoretical framework, sustainability is emphasized in three key economic and social areas. Firstly, is the focus on the planet. According to the BTL theory, the planet is the source of key factors of production and certainly ought to be regulated in order to achieve sustainability. Also, it focuses on the people, the manpower effort in terms of skills and knowledge ought to be sustainable. Besides, the theory focuses on the profits in business enterprises. The goal is to ensure sustainable and profitable business. Literature Review The concept of sustainability has now attracted attention of both profitable, non-profitable and government agencies. As introduced by John Elkington in 1994, the concept has undergone significant transformation through accounting to social sciences (Kornilaki 2011). The theoretical framework of this theory stems from its original three-tire approach that underlines the basis of sustainability. The majority of companies that have embraced this concept in their operations have remained connected to the primary theory of Triple Bottom Line. TBL emphasizes on the sustainability that is anchored on people, planet and profits. It is also called 3 Ps' based on its three areas of emphasis (Jones 2010). According to the theory, the emphasis on the people forms the basis of creating fair and beneficial commercial practices that enshrine the community interest. In addition, under the same pillar it envisages social structures in areas of labor, corporate practices and social responsibility that aim to benefit the society. Any enterprise that upholds the values of sustainability seeks to enhance stakeholder interests in any economic venture the company undertakes. In addition, it suggests that the triple bottom focuses on benefiting as many constituencies as possible and ensuring that no particular group is exploited (Robinson 2010). Planet focuses on the natural capital found within the environment. It enshrines the concept of productivity to include the ability to offer the reliability of resource supply and the capacity of present resources to shoulder the demand of the future generations. The theory proposes the need to ensure that the natural resources, benefits as much as it can at any particular time. In addition, environmental safety is given priority. According to the theoretical framework, it envisages the need to protect the environment through optimum use. It discourages the excessive exploitation and TBL endeavors to reduce ecological footprint (Beech 2014). The theory suggests that planet sustainability is achieved through management of energy consumption, reduction of manufacturing wastes and ensuring non-renewable are appropriately disposed. A triple bottom line industry strives to avoid harmful products to the environment. Instead, it ensures that the environment is safe for today and tomorrow generations. According to TBL thinking industries that generate non-biodegradable products ought to be held responsible both by the company and the community (Kornilaki 2011). In the wake of increased cost of disposal, the government has intervened to ensure that the cost of disposing of non-biodegradable and toxic products remains affordable. In many circumstances, the government bore the cost. The last part of the focuses on the profits, it recognizes it as the ultimate goal of doing business. However, it offers a different definition of the profit in line with the concept of sustainability (Beech 2014). Away from traditional profits, it encompasses ability to enjoy the profits economic value beyond the host society. Additionally, it negates the business selfish approach of defining profits by offering a predictive future approach. The theory is, therefore, a fundamental foundation of any organization, company or even a country that envisages sustainability in its operations. It, therefore, means that under BTL profits cannot be defined as internal economic return to the company, but on a wider scope to encompass social and environmental impact (Keath & Brown 2009). Despite a concerted effort to build sustainability under BTL conceptual framework, the approach received criticism and rejection in equal measure. Firstly, Fred Robin's offered a well-thought criticism. In his challenge to the theory, he noted that the theory cannot make any sense in monetary-based economies. In addition, he identified that the theory cannot be applied in the three segment of the environment, people and profits because it is impractical to sum the profits across the three portfolios (Keath& Brown 2009 ). Other theories of sustainability include multidimensional theory as used in environmental economics. In this theory, it highlights the economic impact posed by environmental uncertainties as the reason to promote a sustainable environment. Besides, it identifies the uncertainty, irreversibility and complex environmental dynamics as an evolutionary process that has bedeviled man's existence since time immemorial (Raj & Walters 2013). With this theory, it recognizes the importance of the physical environment to the economic importance. Besides, it proposes that for any meaningful development to occur, there should be an integration of the physical environment to the economic viability. The theory presents sustainable development in a similar pattern with the TBL theory. It identifies three primary areas of economic sustainability. Firstly, it states that economic stability through the creation of efficient and effective economic resources that can cater for generations is the hallmark of the concept. In recognizing the limitation of resources, the theory proposes that there would not be a linear pathway to progress instead there will be an indefinite growth since economic growth is never infinite. The new definition of the sustainability, according to this theory is the ability to grow capital continuously while maintaining quality of the environment and life (Raj & Walters 2013). Secondly, the theory identifies environment as a key component that makes the concept more lively and real to the issue. The need to nurture a sustainable biodiversity through management of ecological constraints to avoid resources overexploitation and mismanagement informs most of the governmental policies that discourage excessive resource use (Jones 2010). In addition, it recognizes environmental sustainability to include the ability to maintain state of equilibrium of the biodiversity in a way that each promotes additive sustainability to the overall impact. The industrial process are blamed for the acute shortage of resources, and the future remains largely unknown, this is the greatest challenge that the environment face according to the theory. Thirdly, it explores societal needs as a force that drives sustainability. In recognition of the many competing needs at the time of limited resources, the theory suggests that social and cultural practices are important factors in attaining sustainability. Besides, jeopardizing community unity, it has the ultimate effect of compromising on the resource use. The stability of the and infrastructure are key components addressed by the theory (Raj & Walters 2013). Discussion The policy on sustainability offers a purposeful reflection of the industries and the country factors of production. It emphasizes on the ability to generate and continue accessing resources. Sustainable policy aims to understand the event management and promote a positive impact o both the environment and the economy. The environment is the primary source of raw materials and other factors of production. With large resource reservoirs, the policy of sustainability would be meaningless. However, due to the scarce of environmental resources the need of promoting infinity of resources has become inevitable. In addition, event management can have a meaningful impact if programs are built on values such as integrity, responsibility and transparency. The fundamental basis is to create leadership that would embrace communication and motivation towards enhancing organizational and industrial sustainable use of resources (Kornilaki 2011). There are numerous benefits of a successful executed sustainability event management. Firstly, it saves costs and conserves a lot of energies through consumption of fewer products and avoiding wastage. In addition, it promotes positive reputation within a business entity. Through adopting green efforts, the use of technology and creativity will yield an optimal use of resources. Any green event is often considered reputable and has an attraction at local and global arena. With increased environmental concerns and degradation, environmental innovation will achieve greater use of resources and renewable energy supply. Besides, sustainability has brought environmental awareness, and social responsibility has been improved. If well orchestrated, the event creates jobs and acts as catalysts of development. However, the process of enforcing environmental policy as outlined in the TBL theory may not be easy as thought. Firstly, the leading economies in the world for instance U.S, Germany, Japan and other nations continue to emit enormous industrial fumes into the air. Certainly, if the industries were to be shut down, there would be up to 70% unemployment increase. In addition, the industrial enterprises are key economic drivers that creates huge GDP and generate many employment opportunities in these countries. It is, therefore, unlikely and uneconomical to enforce sustainability in total disregard to the economic development. According to 2006 FIFA world cup report on environmental sustainability and the event management, it recognized that it is almost impractical to create an event that would strictly adhere to environmental sustainability. However, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) highlighted that there is still gaps in creating public awareness, allocating sufficient resources to the sustainability campaigns and poor policy foundation that remain on paper (Raj & Walters 2013). There are still laxity in policy framework covering the key areas that include eco-procurement also called green purchasing technology. In addition, water conservation and emission reduction policy remains largely ignored by the industrialist. In addition, energy wastage and social and economic development policies are unknown even to sustainability experts. Although TBL theoretical foundation offers significant insight to the sustainability, it has been criticised to lack practicability in operation. The argument on practicability of TBL is not new, it has been criticized since its foundation. There are five elements of the theory that have become contentious. First, it employs reductive method, it emphasizes on the corporate bodies and largely ignore the environment. It gives economic platform an independent domain and negate the role of non-profitable organization in sustainability. Additionally, the use of simultaneous policy may not achieve global sustainability use of resources. It offers good advisory approach that cannot be enforced. It is not likely that the nation would deliberately undergo sustained recession in order to recover environmental losses. The circle of sustainability is also impractical since it is impossible to sustain a linear projection of economic and environmental sustainability. Where there is environment compromise because of huge excavation, there is likely to experience a tranquil economic progress. It, therefore, means that massive environmental exploits significantly translates to positive economic prospects. Fred Robin disagrees practicability of quantifying economic and environmental sustainability in a monetary-economy. Besides, the environmental benefits are possible to be experienced in the community if resources exploration gets prominence. Unproductive environment in the monetary economy translates to under-utilization of the resources. TBL offers a wrong assumption by equating ecology to environmental priorities. It is wrong to do so since the environmental viability is dictated by its economic value, and social viability is not dependent on the environmental wellbeing. In capitalism economies, enhancing business, environmental ethics will highly fail because it translates to less exploration on the economic viability of available alternatives. Today, businesses are increasingly becoming advanced in applying exploitation of resources in a manner that will yield profits. The need to sustain the environment continues to be secondary. In addition, TBL fragments social sphere from economic pursuits; the exploitative corporations have undertaken the TBL application to create fictitiously people-friendly and eco-friendly public image in order to evade tax and legislation. Arguably, the TBL theoretical framework fails in protecting genuine societal interests and creates an avenue of fraudulence. Conclusion Event management strives to enhance profitability in case of profitable organizations, environmental and economic sustainability of resources. The application of TBL and multidimensional theories offers a point of view on the policy. Sustainability is seen largely forming a foundation on economic ventures, environmental and societal interest. Whichever the dimension, the event and organizational activities are, usually, geared towards achieving the three dimensions. However, it is too theoretical to achieve sustainability in these areas. The most outstanding is the difficulty that events organizers and industries face in balancing environmental exploitation of factors of production and maximizing profits. The two key elements appear to antagonize each other significantly. Recommendation Certainly, there is the overt significance of the concept of susceptibility. It is a desirable feature and a significant interdisciplinary concept that should inform policy makers and law enforcers. As a concept and a discipline, it should be institutionalized through clearly-defined policy. The majority of business both production and manufacturing continue to exploit raw materials in large volumes without paying attention to the future generation. However, there are few theoretical foundation of policy and practice of the concept. In addition, many business empires remain blind to the reality of shortages in supply of raw materials. In addition, there is an enormous challenge of climate change, fluctuation in prices of oil and petroleum products. In such circumstances, the ultimate goal of protecting key raw materials and regulating energy and other factors of production remains undermined. It is through a thoughtful suggestion that the change towards sustainability should be achieved not only through policy, but also enforcement of the written policy. The aim of regulatory policy on the environment and business practices should be viewed as a means to create meaningful environmental good. The need for policy framework in venue selection for events, transport and planning and managing potential issues should be put a number one priority. Besides, the British Standards policy should be emulated in order to enculturate the concept into event and venue management. References List Beech, J. G. 2014. The business of events management. Boston: Pearson Education. Jones, M. 2010. Sustainable event management a practical guide. London: Earthscan. Keath, N. A., & Brown, R. R. 2009. Extreme events: being prepared for the pitfalls with progressing sustainable urban water management. Water Science & Technology, 59(7), 1271. Kornilaki, M. 2011. Sustainable Event Management – A Practical Guide. Journal of Policy Research in Tourism, Leisure and Events, 3(3), 329-330. Raj, R., & Walters, P. 2013. Events management: principles and practice (2nd ed.). London: SAGE. Robinson, P., Wale, D., & Dickson, G. 2010. Events management. Wallingford, Oxfordshire: CABI. Read More