For most event businesses, carbon management happens in pieces. Event emissions are tracked one way, often project by project. The operational emissions (the office, commute, day to day practices) are tracked separately, if at all, and usually in a different system entirely.
While there is likely to be some overlap between the two, depending on what level of detail an event business sets out to report against will impact how data is collected and managed.
Treating the two as separate entities makes sense. The events operations rely heavily on the supply chain which involves multiple different stakeholders whereas business operations are comparatively more straightforward meaning clearer lines of control and accountability.
Despite this, measuring as separate entities creates two sets of data, two boundaries and two sets of assumptions that are rarely built to talk to each other. This is how measurement practice has developed, making getting a full picture of a business’s footprint harder than it needs to be.
Before that can change, it helps to be clear on what “operational emissions” actually covers and where the line between operational and event activity sits.
What operational emissions actually include
Operational emissions cover the carbon impact of running the business itself, independent of any single event or project. In the events industry, this typically breaks down into:
- Energy: mains electricity and gas at offices, warehouses or permanent sites, kept separate from temporary power sources or venue power used on site at events. This also includes fuel used directly for operational activities i.e. site vehicles.
- Water: supply and treatment at permanent business premises
- Staff commuting: how employees get to and from a fixed place of work
- Homeworking: the emissions associated with employees working remotely
- Business travel: flights, rail, car travel for work purposes not tied to delivering a specific event. If an organisation produces an event, team travel should be reported as business travel. Where travel is linked to delivering a specific event, businesses may choose to layer additional event-level reporting such as totals per event.
- Accommodation: hotel stays for business purposes outside of event delivery.
- Operational transport: movement of goods, equipment or materials that supports the business generally, rather than a specific event build. All transport should be included under operational reporting, with the additional layer of transported linked at events for increased nuance.
These are not dependent on whether or not an event is occurring that week, they exist because the business exists.
Where the differentiation gets blurry
In practice, the line between “operational” and “event” isn’t always obvious. A few situations that regularly trip teams up:
- A supplier’s delivery van. If a supplier van is delivering equipment at a specific event, it’s classified as event transport. If it is completing a routine warehouse to office run, it’s operational. The same vehicle, even doing similar mileage can sit on either side of the line depending on the purpose.
- Freelancer or contractor travel. Someone travelling to work on site at a client’s event is generally event related. The same person commuting to a planned meeting at your office beforehand may not be.
- Venue utilities. A venue’s day to day energy use is operational. The additional power draw for a specific event (temporary rigging, generators, extended hours) sits in the event emissions category.
- Homeworking during event planning. An employee working from home while planning an event is still, generally, an operational cost of employment rather than an event specific one despite the work itself being event related.
The test that tends to hold up: is this emission tied to the delivery of a specific, identifiable event, or would it exist regardless of which events are on the calendar that month? If it’s the latter, it’s operational.
Why the differentiation matters
Distinguishing between event and operational emissions provides a clearer foundation for action, understanding where control sits across your emissions and helps shape your decision making and prioritisation. Beyond that it affects:
- Comparability year on year. If the operational/event split shifts inconsistently between reporting periods, trend data stops being reliable.
- Avoiding double counting. Without a clear differentiation, the same emissions can end up counted in both a project report and a company wide total.
- Company level reporting. Increasingly, event businesses are being asked for ESG or regulatory disclosures at the organisational level, not just the project level. Operational data has to be capturable on its own, separate from any single client or event, for that reporting to be credible.
Bringing the two together
As reporting expectations, from both consumer groups and regulatory bodies, increase, more event businesses are looking to bring operational and event measurement into a single, consistent system rather than managing them as two separate exercises.
That’s part of the thinking behind TRACE Business Operations. It allows you to measure operational emissions alongside event emissions, on a shared platform, without collapsing the distinction between the two.
Getting the differentiation right first is what makes that kind of combined reporting meaningful.
