About Us
As of February 2024, Positive Impact has a community of almost 2,000 global event professionals, over 40 corporate Head of Events, over 40 Corporate Head of Sustainability, over 160 SMEs with a Race to Zero commitment, over 5 memorandums of understanding with United Nations bodies.
We are the only event sector body to be a Race to Zero Accelerator, UN SDG Action mobiliser and to have education certified by the world’s largest and leading CPD accreditation working across all sectors, so our education is accessed by heads of marketing, HR and sustainability.
For over 15 years not for profit Positive Impact have been providing engagement, collaboration and education to create a sustainable event industry. You could describe Positive Impact as the ‘critical friend’ of the global event sector.
Our funding comes from everywhere and nowhere, and every penny, cent or yen is used to advance the event sector so every time an event happens the UN Sustainable Development Goals are advanced and events are recognised as ensuring 'participation and inclusion in decision making’ (UN SDG16).
This is a timeline of Positive Impact's journey and the creation of a sustainable event industry. It reflects initiatives from:
The United Nations
Positive Impact
CEO Fiona Pelham
Key developments in the creation of a sustainable event industry.
Demonstrating how to advance 5th P (Persuade) Race to Zero commitments by delivering a sustainable engagement strategy
On 5th June Positive Impact celebrated World Environment Day. The Pavilion for People was open for 24 hours, and a free webinar was available for the Race to Zero community.
On World Environment Day (5th June 2024) The Pavilion for People opened for 24 hours. Attendees could join the Race to Zero community and:
Build your capacity in event sustainability
Find out how to join The Race to Zero and access the resources you need to make a credible commitment to net zero (there will be a webinar for The Race to Zero community)
Explore how The Pavilion for People is enabling all voices to be heard
Outlining 10 essentials for corporate sustainable event strategies
This 1 hour webinar to celebrate World Environment Day delivered fast-paced content which outlined actions and resources for delivering a credible sustainable event strategy
This 1 hour webinar to celebrate World Environment Day delivered fast-paced content which outlined actions and resources for delivering a credible sustainable event strategy including:
net zero carbon targets
SDGs
human and child rights
Date: Tuesday 7th June 2022
Time: 4pm BST
This top 10 was taken from Positive Impact's 24 hour Earth Day #investinourplanet event which included sessions with Unicef UK, The UNFCCC Race to Zero Accelerators, UN Global compact and more.
#onlyoneearth
Asking who will be responsible for future generations being able to meet?
In the lead up to Earth Day on 22nd April 2021, Positive Impact asked the question: This Earth Day, will you be responsible for future generations being able to meet?
In the lead up to Earth Day on 22nd April 2021, Positive Impact asked the question:
This is the video from the home page for our Earth Day 2021 campaign:
Anybody who was ready to take immediate action then had the chance to support a fundraising initiative to create a Climate Action Framework:
Be responsible for future generations being able to meet
On June 7th will you give your input to a virtual stakeholder engagement facilitated by UNFCCC so the event sector can have a Climate Action Framework launched at COP26?
Between Earth Day and Word Environment Day, Positive Impact is fundraising £30,000 ($45,000/ €35,000) so stakeholder engagement can happen.
We need to take action now, or the event industry will be left behind in the transformation to a low-carbon future.
There were multiple opportunities to get involved:
You can make a difference by using your voice to champion a sustainable event industry along with our global community of over 1,400 ambassadors (join our ambassador community today).
The immediate support we need is fundraising so we have created a number of opportunities for you to market yourself and support the future event sector.
In addition, any resources you purchase from us will fund the carbon target. We have a number of opportunities for you to educate yourself and support the future event sector.
Ways to support the campaign and raise funds included:
Celebrate my personal action to be sustainable
From £5.00Pay as much as you can afford
Between Earth Day and World Environment Day, we will post a tweet using your words, to celebrate your personal action to be sustainable.
Celebrate a company, association or destination's action to be sustainable
£800.00Between Earth Day and World Environment Day, we will post a tweet using your words, to celebrate your company, association or destination’s action to be sustainable. On Earth Day 2020, our campaign reached an online community of over 1.5 million.
Please note: Your sustainable action will hopefully be shared in a press release (this is dependent on when you sign up, so the sooner the better!). We may also post your sustainable action on LinkedIn and Instagram.
Educate myself on the UN SDGs
£100.00Educate is a product relevant for anyone who would like to be empowered to progress the Sustainable Development Goals. For a one-time payment of £100 (€110/ $135) you will get access to over 30 hours of content from global thought leaders which you can consume in your own time.
Corporate brands were invited to schedule a one to one conversation with us for further resources and initiatives to be a part of.
We also had a series of audio FAQ for anybody who wondered why they needed to be responsible for future generations to meet:
The Earth Day Agenda
Join our global #eventprofs community for 24 hours on Thursday 22nd April as together we explore how events can be used to achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Host an hour of social media sharing your sustainability best practice
Starting at 6am BST on April 22nd this Earth Day, a global conversation will take place on Twitter via the hashtags #EventsCreateChange and #EarthDay.
Positive Impact and UNEP invite you to a roundtable to explore how to address the role of plastic in the event sector
Date: 22nd April 2021
Time: 9:45am (GMT), 10:45am (CET), 17:45pm (JST)
This roundtable will be an exploration into best practices surrounding plastic reduction which will be important to advance the Sustainable Development Goals.
UNEP will explain their plastic initiative and Positive Impact will provide attendees with resources on how to address the role of plastic at their event.
Why is this an important topic on Earth Day?
“humans have produced around 8.3 billion tonnes of plastic since the 1950s and that figure is predicted to rise to around 34 billion tonnes by 2050… Humanity dumps its own combined weight in plastics annually into ecosystems. That’s 300 million tonnes every year choking waterways and seas, clogging streets, harming wildlife and, ultimately, doing serious damage to public health.’
- United Nations Environment Programme
If plastic consumption was address this would advance many of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, these are:
SDG 3, Good Health
SDG 13, Climate Action
SDG 14, Life Below Water
SDG 15, Life on Land
How does the role of plastic in the event sector contribute to this global production of plastic?
How can the event sector address their consumption advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals?
