EVENT SUSTAINABILITY REPORT
CEO’S MESSAGE Sustainability is of fundamental importance to Alive2Green because we are a media company that focuses on issues that relate to sustainability. All our commercial opportunities, our business strategy and the choice of titles that we publish relate to sustainability, and in that sense we are different to other companies. Our strategy for the short term is to consolidate the media products and assets that we currently operate. Sustainability Week has the potential to double in size without requiring additional components. A goal for Sustainability Week is to reach beyond national boundaries to draw international audiences. This year we were delighted to see mayoral delegations from African capital cities at the show, and we are certainly looking to increase the level of attendance from other African stakeholders. As far as sustainability relates to our own operations, and as a small company we sometimes put delivery ahead of the big picture, and because we sublet premises we are not in a strong position to influence our immediate operational sustainability, but we are working on changing this. Alive2Green’s biggest impacts occur down the value chain through printing and distribution of publications, and in the running of events, and in respect of these aspects we try hard. In terms of environmental impact we need to work more closely with suppliers to minimise those environmental impacts that are significant at any event. This report gives details of the ways we are already addressing these issues in the Event Greening section. In respect of our magazines, we might increase the frequency of the Green Economy Journal as this seeks to compete with other more frequently published business journals. We are contemplating decreasing the frequency of Green Home Magazine but looking at improving the quality, with a perfect-bound coffee-table look. We are thinking of expanding into the mining publishing market. We will be putting a lot of effort into electronic publishing and we hope to grow that business. We will continue to reinvent ourselves and reinvent our publications and invest great amounts of effort in ensuring that we’re producing best content.
38
We need to work more closely with our suppliers on environmental matters—pushing the boundaries of paper quality, looking at more efficient logistics for distribution, trying our best to advance our electronic business and increasing the market share. Another aspect we need to explore is assessing our events in relation to international standards, where appropriate. The bulk of standards in event industries relate to venues and suppliers. We use the top five suppliers in the country, so it is a matter of checking how they match up to international standards like King III and ISO. Social impact initiatives include exploring legacy projects with the City of Tshwane. The emediate impacts relate to the invitation to City of Tshwane stakeholders to attend the event, who through being inspired by speakers and exhibitors, might begin to reduce their impacts or to get involved in the green economy directly. The launch of the African Capital Cities Sustainability Forum made a positive social impact in support of the Executive Mayor’s campaign against xenophobia. In relation to our youth outreach, we have formed a partnership with a local Tshwane company that is active in the same space. Through them and with our input, we are hoping to provide support to young entrepreneurs in the City of Tshwane. We also have a website that provides ongoing information to young people about bursaries, scholarships and a range of other inputs. A dedicated newsletter to our youth stakeholders also provides them with the latest information regarding advancing their education. We certainly see sustainability becoming a more and more important issue, driven by macroeconomic realities in South Africa. Energy continues to be constrained and is going to continue to increase in price. That is a driver for companies to look at obvious alternatives like renewable energy and energy efficiency. People are not necessarily turning to these solutions because they’re sustainable but because they offer genuine alternatives to the current energy crisis. Regionally, Southern Africa will continue to be a water-scarce region, and as industrialisation increases, ongoing pollution will continue to negatively impact that resource. In terms of water conservation and becoming more
efficient with water use, we need to advance best practice in this regard, upgrade infrastructure on the supply side, and upgrade infrastructure in relation to human settlements to improve access to water and sanitation and reduce wastage and effluent runoff. Likewise issues that relate to waste: landfill sites around the country are filling up while government is making it harder for municipalities to open new landfill sites. New landfill sites are being located further away from the cities, increasing the cost of transport. The real costs of our current disposal paradigm are increasing and its becoming harder to externalise these, and therefore the pursuit of alternatives is going to continue to grow through greater levels of waste recycling, materials recovery, and upstream beneficiation. Human health issues—we believe that there is a trend among people to be more conscious of their health and more aware of things like toxins found in paints and coatings and other manufactured goods. Issues such as the use of inorganic farming practices, fertilisers and how they affect nutrition and health are becoming increasingly topical. There is a growing awareness of these issues and we perceive that it’s going to continue to increase. There is a big push in nutrition to go for unprocessed, whole foods, etc. There is a greater reconnection being made between consumers and food production and farming, and that’s putting pressure on farmers to farm more sustainably. Environmental health—this is an area of concern both on a state level and regionally. The state is struggling to enforce rules and regulations that relate to environmental degradation. We don’t seem to be winning our war against poachers, both rhino and other poachers. We are not resourcing those areas well enough, and that’s where we see tourism and particularly sustainable tourism playing a key role; the more we invest in the protection of biodiversity and areas of natural beauty in the country, the greater the revenue streams and the economic growth that will flow from tourism. One of our key objectives is to connect the dots in the minds of policy makers in this regard. Our publications and our events offer the opportunity to speak about these issues: what will the effect be on tourism if all the rhinos are wiped
www.sustainabilityweek.co.za