A high-end events agency catering to global corporate and private clients that designs immersive experiences, bespoke entertainment and live events. They have won numerous industry awards for their work and recently won the Gold Award for Best Conference at the EVCOM London Live Awards. In response to recent lockdown measures, Private Drama Events co-founded The Shutter Lounge, an interactive, virtual venue experience that can be customised for different types of events.

Their Pledge:

To reduce 50% of their baseline carbon emissions by 2025 and reach net zero by 2030.

The events industry has the opportunity and the responsibility to play a game-changing role in reducing carbon emissions.

The UK events industry emits 1.2bn kg of CO2e every year, using an estimated 380 million litres of diesel, costing around £230 mln. That diesel use contributes 1.2bn kilograms of CO2e emissions annually (nearly 1.5% of total UK diesel use) – approximately the same as the country of Malta. 

Report Findings commissioned by Hope Solutions and ZAP Concepts, using data from A Greener Festival, Julie’s Bicycle, Powerful Thinking and ZAP.

Quick and easy actions to reduce event carbon footprint include choosing vegetarian meals, implementing ISO 20121, or simply sourcing items locally. 

Private Drama Events’ Net Zero Journey

A specialist environmental film consultant, Roxy Erickson from One Thing, helped Private Drama Events construct their net zero plan. 

Their Net Zero strategy includes three key areas:

Supplier Engagement

Private Drama Events will:

• Review their supplier list and prioritise low carbon alternatives for transport, waste and energy.
• Create a responsible procurement policy  working in partnership with key suppliers to encourage best practice minimising environmental impacts and inspiring ideas to decarbonise their own emissions.
• Where possible, switch to local suppliers to reduce transport emissions and support the local economy. All local courier suppliers will be procured from electric or human-powered vehicles.
• Ensure web and cloud hosts are using 100% renewable electricity in their Data Centres and offices. Private drama will also increase their website efficiency to save approximately 169 kgCO2e by 2022.
• Re-evaluate financial portfolios and explore changing their banking and pension fund to one that has divested from fossil fuels and arms trading.
• Move to a new office space that purchases 100% renewable energy and is equipped to monitor the GHG emissions and waste produced on site.

Waste Management

Private Drama Events will:

Convert 50% of their landfill waste to recyclable waste and eliminate 100% of their landfill waste by moving to recyclable waste streams by 2025.
Slash recycled waste by 80%, mainly by cutting paper purchases to save circa 1000 kgCO2e by 2023.
• Collaborate with fellow events companies to set up a sharing, renting and re-using system for re-usable events products by 2023.

Sustainable Events

Private Drama Events will:

• Work towards a Sustainable Event Management System using ISO: 20121 for Sustainable Events. This will enable them to manage future events with practical actions that help their clients reduce the environmental impacts.
Measure the CO2e emissions of future events so they can offer their clients the option to offset the CO2e emissions while also reducing their scope 3 emissions.
• Allow employees an extra day’s holiday to travel by rail instead of air.
Educate their team about Climate Change and reaching net zero, so that they can become advocates in their industry and beyond.

“Being part of the Better Futures+ programme helped us define our sustainability practices and commit to a net zero emissions model for all our events, digital and in person, by 2030. It was an inspiring programme which supported a group of like-minded individuals.”
Nicola King
Marketing Director