How to shift your mind-set

“I bet the dinosaurs thought they had more time.”

This was my favourite poster from the Copenhagen Fridays for Future Climate March- it made me laugh out loud because it rings so true for me based on the work I do daily.

This week Positive Impact launch the first version of an app to ‘address the role of plastic in the event industry.’ IE find out how we are using plastic and be in action to change our approach (more information on this action can be found in the website or will be shared in future blogs).

Originally this app was created for event professionals. With some exception the response to this app has been only what can be described as that of a dinosaur, who can’t see extinction coming. To write it more clearly event professionals who specialise in sustainability have said they don’t want to use the app at their events until they have had more time to address their plastic challenges and put the best practice into place.

The climate protests in 123 countries, at 2052 places across all continents on March 15 2019 are clearly telling us we have no more time.

This post isn’t about whether the event industry uses the EventSustainability app or not, this post is about whether the event industry can shift mind-set from ‘we have to get it right and avoid criticism and know the business lore for each of our actions’ to ‘we can collaborate with the next generation, identify our challenges and take action to address them together.’ How will we move from a checklist approach of ‘I’m doing this because someone told me this is right’ to ‘let’s be part of finding the solution and collaborate- who knows what will happen!’

Positive Impact’s role has always been to provide education and collaboration to create a sustainable event industry. We’re in action collaborating with the Fridays for the future global community and we can’t wait to bring their ideas and insight into our industry. Let’s not be dinosaurs, lets act on a future of event attendees, organisers and world leaders, seeing events as part of the solution not the problem.

Please sign up to be part of our ambassador programme to learn more about equal opportunities for education and collaboration to create a sustainable events industry.