Measuring your carbon impact begins with defining exactly what to measure. You will need to gather information from your suppliers, venues and colleagues, and TRACE has been designed to try to make this as simple as it can be.
At isla we have worked with leading consultants across the industry to define both what is feasible to measure, and what the leading causes of emissions from the event industry are:
- Energy Usage
- Food & Drink
- Graphics and Build Production
- Travel & Accommodation for the audience and staff
- Event Transport logistics
- Waste and recycling
- Online streaming
We encourage all event planners to capture all areas of their event to ensure your carbon impact report is comprehensive and represents a true picture of the event’s environmental footprint. However not all areas are relevant to all projects, and therefore you can toggle off some sections of the TRACE tool when required.
You will likely need to gather information from your suppliers, venues and colleagues, and TRACE has been designed to try to make this as simple as possible.
To introduce the concept of TRACE to your suppliers we’ve created an Introduction to TRACE document that you’re welcome to share with them, alongside the area-specific templates and associated guidance sheets.
Here’s a list of the data you’ll need, so you’ll know what to ask your venue and suppliers for:
Energy Use:
🔲 Mains Electricity and Gas usage- Best: Meter readings for electricity and gas used in your venue during your hire period. Tip: If you are using part of a venue, ask your venue if they have the equipment to measure your specific electricity usage
- Better than basic: Annual energy consumption of the venue and space hired
- Basic: the tool can estimate usage based on the type of venue
Build Production:
🔲 Total weight of each type of material used, its source (recycled/virgin/hired) and its onward life after use (recycled/disposed/donated etc)Graphics:
🔲 For large format print items, the square metres and grams per m of each material used, plus the source and onward life details.Food and Drink:
🔲 Guest Catering: the number of covers for each meal type and menu choices (beef/lamb, other meat or fish, vegetarian or plant based) as well as the serveware used, such as reusable crockery or disposable paper plates.🔲 Crew catering: as above
🔲 Beverages: The number of drinks served (beer/cider, wine, spirits, soft drinks, hot drinks, water), the packaging material and size and whether any additional serveware was provided such as plastic cups.
Waste:
🔲 Ideally, this would be segregated into each type of recyclable material, but mixed recycling collection can be measured instead, as well as general waste (“black bag” waste destined for landfill/incineration)- Best: the weight of each type of waste
- Better than basic: the total litres of bins (or bin bags) filled
- Basic: the venue’s annual waste created/contract to enable an estimate
Event Transport:
🔲 For contractor trucking such as contractors and suppliers you’ll need to know the vehicle size, fuel type and distance travelled, or the tool can calculate the distance if you know the start and end locations (UK postcodes or cities). For US locations you will need to add a state or country as zip codes aren’t unique. e.g. 90210, Los Angeles or 90210, US.🔲 Company owned vehicles require the same information
🔲 Dedicated couriers, such as small vehicles and bike couriers also use the same format. We do not currently capture emissions from postage or standard parcel deliveries in shared loads.
🔲 Overseas Sea Shipping and Air Freight requires the total weight of the items being sent.
Audience Travel & Accommodation:
🔲 The mode of transport and distance travelled (or start and end UK postcodes/cities) for each guest. For flights, you’ll need to know the class of flights too. For hotels, you’ll need to know whether they were eco-hotels using renewable energy, or standard, and the number of room nights booked- Best: These details for every guest.
- Better than basic: As above but for a smaller sample of guests: TRACE will extrapolate that data to estimate your full impact
- Basic: estimated percentage split of transport options and distances travelled, which is often available from marketing data, in order to estimate your potential audience emissions
Staff Travel & Accommodation:
🔲 As it is usually reasonable to gather this information you’ll need to know the mode of transport and distance travelled (or start and end postcodes/cities) for each member of staff.🔲 For flights, you’ll need to know the class of flights too.
🔲 For hotels, you’ll need to know whether they were eco-hotels using renewable energy, or standard, and the number of rooms booked.