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ICC Sydney commits to Earth Day

23 Apr 2021

At ICC Sydney, we pride ourselves on being industry leaders in sustainable events. To shine a light on the importance of sustainability, we acknowledge the 51st annual Earth Day.

Corporate Social Responsibility, including environmental sustainability is a core focus here at ICC Sydney so we are pleased to participate in such an important global occasion, bringing together people to drive positive action for our planet. In line with this year’s theme, Restore Our Earth, we support the need to move beyond preventative measures and into proactive action to restore the planet to a healthier state, a cause we can relate to and have initiatives in place to drive forward.

Sustainability in focus

According to EventBrite’s 2020 Event Trends Report, 72% of Australian event organisers are actively taking steps to improve the sustainability of their events, a huge jump from only 11% in 2019. At ICC Sydney we have seen this sentiment mirrored in the needs of our clients, with many looking to host sustainable events that mitigate negative impact on the environment and positive impact in the community. We expect this demand for sustainable events to continue to increase as we move out of the COVID-19 crisis.

We’ve also adopted a triple bottom line approach to CSR with business performance directly linked to our social, environmental and financial results. We focus attention across all three areas year round, working to identify initiatives that contribute positively to our clients’ events and will be integral to building sustainable communities and cities for the future.

Building a legacy

Our team is proud to deliver social, environmental and economic benefits to our local community. Our Legacy Program allows clients to make that impact through one of our five available streams, one of which is environmental sustainability. Each stream maximises connections with local communities and creates unique experiences for clients and delegates. Events provide an opportunity for powerful legacies to be created that leave an ongoing and positive impact not only on delegates and clients, but on the wider local communities or host cities.

The sustainability stream also allows clients to tailor their outcomes to match their business or organisation’s values and goals, providing a post-event report which reflects on the successes of the initiative and the impact of the event.

Initiatives at ICC Sydney

ICC Sydney adopts the UN Sustainable Development Goals, embedding sustainable practices business-wide. The venue’s sustainable design achieved Gold certification under the LEED© green building program and is also certified to the International Standard ISO14001 for Environmental Management and Silver certified under the EarthCheck program. We were also thrilled to be awarded the 2019 MEA Event Legacy Award win for the implementation of our Legacy Program for SIBOS 2018.

Where possible we conserve energy and water resources, minimise waste and encourage our team, clients and delegates to do so as well. Despite operations being impacted by COVID-19 over the past twelve months, our sustainable initiatives across the business continued, including an increase in signage front and back of house to address education about waste streams and the general reduction of waste from ICC Sydney.

In a further effort to reduce food wastage, throughout 2020 ICC Sydney donated 6,316kg of unused excess food items to Matthew Talbot Hostel. This excess provided 18,949 meals for underprivileged individuals and families within the local community.

To learn more about ICC Sydney’s initiatives or to reduce the impact of your next event, see our Legacy Program.