What a sustainable event actually looks like (the practice)

The single most significant sustainability factor in any event is the building it is held in. Before food, before travel, before offsetting discussions: the building either performs well or it does not.

BREEAM, the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method, is the UK’s most established framework for assessing building sustainability. It evaluates energy performance, water use, materials, ecology, pollution, health and wellbeing, and management practices. Ratings run from Pass through Good, Very Good, Excellent, and Outstanding.

BREEAM Excellent, which 88 Wood Street holds, represents the second-highest achievable rating. It reflects embedded decisions: how the building was designed, what it is built from, how its systems operate day to day.

Most event venues in London were not built with this standard in mind. The difference matters, because the building’s energy use forms the base of the environmental footprint of any event held inside it.

Measuring carbon at the event level
Building certification tells you about the infrastructure. It does not tell you about the event.

Carbon is generated every time a group of people gathers for a day: energy for lighting, heating and cooling, the AV systems, the catering operation. In most venues, this goes untracked. Clients are given a broad estimate based on a standard formula, if they are given anything at all.

TOGETHER works with OneTribe, an impact measurement platform, to track the environmental footprint of events at the individual event level. After every hosted event, the client receives a post-event report showing carbon generated, travel contribution, energy consumption, catering footprint, and total offset cost.

A specific number, tied to a specific day, for a specific group of people.

For organisations with sustainability reporting requirements, and more of them have these requirements every year, that data is a deliverable, not a brochure statement.

The food question

The single biggest lever most events have over their environmental impact is food. Where it comes from, how much is prepared, how much ends up in the bin.

Industrial event catering optimises for volume. Food arrives in bulk, is kept warm for variable periods, and waste is managed by over-preparing rather than by calibrating accurately. The carbon cost of that model is high: in the supply chain, in the cooking, and in the disposal.

TOGETHER’s in-house kitchen cooks to order, using suppliers whose sourcing can be traced. Caravan supplies the coffee. Fresh preparation reduces waste and improves quality simultaneously. These outcomes are not in competition. When you cook what you need, you waste less and the food is better.

Any surplus that does remain is handled responsibly. TOGETHER works with Olio, a food sharing platform that redistributes unused food within local communities rather than sending it to waste, and Too Good To Go, which connects surplus food with people who can use it. Between cooking to order and redistributing what is left, the food waste footprint of an event at TOGETHER is as low as the operation can make it.

Catering choices are also where most event planners have the most direct influence. You can choose a venue without much flexibility on building certification. You can almost always choose what gets served, how it is produced, and what happens to what is left over.

Sustainability claims fall apart at the supply chain. A venue can commit to waste reduction but source food from suppliers with no environmental accountability. It can invest in building energy efficiency while running a catering operation built entirely on single-use packaging.

Transparency means being able to answer specific questions: who grew this, how was it transported, what happens to what is left over? TOGETHER’s in-house model keeps the supply chain short and auditable. The team knows the suppliers. The sourcing decisions are made deliberately, not by default. And the waste reduction partnerships with Olio and Too Good To Go mean there is an answer to the last question, not just an intention.

For clients, that transparency is increasingly important. ESG reporting frameworks are requiring organisations to account for their supply chains and their events. Working with venues that can provide traceable data is part of meeting that requirement.

Offsetting: useful and not sufficient

Carbon offsetting is often positioned as the solution to event sustainability. It is part of a solution. It is not a substitute for reducing what you produce in the first place.

The sequencing matters. Measure first. Reduce where possible. Offset what you cannot reduce. The OneTribe framework applied at TOGETHER follows this logic: it generates the measurement that makes both reduction and accurate offsetting possible.

An offset calculated against a real number is worth something. An offset calculated against a guess is a gesture.

What to actually ask

If you are planning events and you want to understand the sustainability performance of venues you are considering, these are the useful questions:

What is the building’s BREEAM or equivalent rating? Can they tell you about building-level energy performance?

Is event-level carbon tracked and reported? Or is sustainability performance estimated at the portfolio level?

How is food sourced and prepared? Is catering in-house or outsourced? Who are the suppliers and what do they know about where the food comes from?

How is waste managed? Is there a documented waste reduction framework or is over-preparation the default?

Can they provide documentation? Not a policy statement. Actual numbers from actual events.

The venues that can answer these questions well are doing the work. The ones that cannot are usually working from the brochure.