Did you raise your hand to sustainability? Or maybe it landed on your desk because you’re a CEO, an Ops Director, or Head of People, and it was the ‘best fit’.
Either way, there’s a new level of uncertainty here that you’re just not used to.
Maybe you have a sustainability lead, or a small champion team, but ultimately you’re making the call on things you don’t fully understand.
Carbon metrics? Supplier credentials? Commercial benefit? Stakeholder involvement? And like most events leaders in your position, you’re missing the nuance that comes with years in the field.
This is one of the biggest struggles I hear from board and senior leaders in the events industry who have the accountability hat for sustainability:
‘It’s tough leading through the uncertainty’.
Everything else that’s on your plate, you’ve done a million times before, and done it well. You’re not used to making such important decisions while in this fog of the unknown.
Especially when there’s a whole lot else competing for the same headspace.
Growth targets and new business. Venue and supplier costs climbing. A new prospect keen on sustainability optics, but not willing to pay extra for it.
A dozen priorities all asking for your attention, budget and sign-off. So sustainability gets filed as ‘important, but less urgent’. The right thing to do, but not commercial enough to fully prioritise.
But perhaps you notice this phrase is getting a little repetitive.
A narrative stuck on a loop that doesn’t quite belong anymore.
…Maybe it’s starting to sound like an excuse?
It can feel like a big leap to get serious about sustainability, but it doesn’t have to be a huge and sudden move. With the right mindset shift, a little consistency, and a few tweaks to your leadership repertoire, you can turn sustainability and ESG strategy into something that strengthens culture, builds reputation, and drives commercial results.
Here are five leadership traits that make a real difference in HOW you do this:
1. Get more clarity
Contrary to popular opinion, leading change doesn’t need the strongest argument in the room before you act.
You don’t need all the answers. What’s important however is how you handle not having them. The more vulnerable and honest you can be, the quicker you build trust – moving people from wary to willing.
What does this look like in practice? Meeting people where they are. Asking curious questions. Sharing that you don’t know all the answers, but asking people to build solutions with you. And importantly, staying open when someone pushes back.
Culture change research backs this up too. Change management is rooted in this kind of emotional intelligence and psychological safety. Give people the time to feel heard and the space to feel seen. When people know it’s safe to try – and safe to fail – they act more readily.
An event director, put on the spot about sustainability results, is likely to shut it down with ‘no time, no budget.’ But if you ask them to help solve the problem, or contribute to a draft solution, it gives them a chance to pause, think, and evolve.
2. Close the uncertainty gap
Moving forward into the unknown is uncomfortable. You’re agreeing to finger-in-the-air targets, making uninformed commercial decisions, and fielding customer questions without clear evidence of the outcomes. All this together creates a cavern between boardroom decisions and action in the field.
Do you know what eases that gap?
Data.
One of the most powerful questions in decision-making is simply: “what might happen if?” Without data, that question stays hypothetical. With it, you can weigh the options and the risks, and back your answer with something more solid than instinct.
In practice: your first year of data will probably be quite woolly. But by year two or three, you’ll have a solid decision-making tool that cuts through uncertainty as much as it cuts your footprint.
Yes, measurement costs money. But you’ll need to move at some point, and standing still costs you more.
3. The cost of inaction
Hands down, this is the biggest problem I see in sustainability budget conversations.
They all start with: What is this going to cost us?
It’s not a bad question on its own. But when it’s the only question, it poses a real risk to the long-term profit line.
It needs to be backed up by a second question: What does it cost us to stand still?
Or, how much effort does it take to keep treading water?
Or, Where will we end up if we carry on drifting with the tide?
This is the cost of inaction.
And it’s easy to miss. Because inaction feels safe, especially when nothing’s visibly gone wrong. But leave it too long, and you start to notice missed opportunities, slower growth, and sudden legislative changes that require (expensive) all-hands-on-deck action.
If inaction feels like the safe option, try exploring these questions first:
👉 What are we missing out on: What new business could a well-resourced sustainability plan open up?
👉 What might we lose if we don’t act: Which tenders have we won on sustainability credentials that require improvements we’re not resourcing?
👉 What else are we blindsided by when we overlook sustainability: What materials or services are at risk of price hikes or supply chain shortages?
👉 How far are we behind: What are our competitors doing in this space? Do we compare, or are we on the back foot?
4. Align your priorities
Event sustainability often gets stuck in its own lane because it sits outside the growth targets, client pressures, and team KPIs that the rest of the business runs by.
Sustainability still has to compete for the same sign-off as everything else, but it’s not fully connected to what leadership gets measured on. So it loses out every time.
When your staff have to choose between their bonus-related priorities and a sustainability add-on, they’ll choose the former – and ‘shoehorn sustainability in’ when they have ‘spare time’ (and we all know how much spare time there is in the world of events).
If you’re noticing this misalignment, there’s an easy fix: start by mapping what’s already there. Sit down with your business goals, the KPIs, who owns them – and map where sustainability fits, and where it resists.
Where’s the overlap? Where’s the friction?
Taking time with this exercise presents quick-win opportunities where goals are actually doing the same thing, but speaking a different language.
And of course, friction (and frustration) will also show up. But don’t get disheartened, as you now have a clear problem to troubleshoot rather than a vague notion that something isn’t working.
Want to map this properly for your event business?
You can download one of my alignment practices here
5. Reframe the narrative
It’s easy to get stuck telling yourself the same sustainability story: the budget’s tight, the timing’s wrong, and now’s not the moment. And sometimes that’s true.
It’s more likely, however, that you’re stuck in a narrative and in need of a reframe.
For example, let’s compare: ‘we need to spend money on staff training.’
It’s easy to say: sorry, no budget right now.
But, no budget for what? Sustainability? O rno budget to invest in new business opportunities? No budget to protect our reputation? No budget to mitigate risk?
When we respond with better questions we start to get more informed requests:
‘We need to invest in training because our frontline team has to deliver on the client’s sustainability expectations in our contract. We’re protecting ourselves reputationally (because we’ve said publicly how important this is to us) and it puts us in a strong place for repeat work from this high budget client.’
Same spend. Different conversation.
Stuck narratives are easy to spot. They feel incongruent. You’re saying the words, but you don’t quite believe them yourself anymore.
It’s the same with the overused words we use when we tell others we’re busy or tired.
An important question for an event leader to ask is: what sustainability narratives are starting to feel like a stuck record? And what might be the truth if you look a little deeper?
None of these traits requires a sustainability qualification. They need the same thing any other leadership skill does: thought, practice, reflection and evolution.
The events companies leading in the sustainability space aren’t the ones with every answer. They’re the ones willing to say, ‘here’s what I know, here’s what I don’t, and here’s what we’re doing next, regardless.’
If you’re waiting to feel ready before you speak up, then I challenge you: what does ‘ready’ look like, and how do you know when you’re there.
If you want more of these insights on sustainability leadership, you can join me here
About the author:
Briony is a certified leadership coach, culture specialist and the founder of The Circular Life. She supports sustainability leads and the board members and impact businesses to embed sustainability leadership into the organisation. With 15+ year years in sustainability and ESG consulting, she is now fully focused on closing the gap between delivering technical strategy and leading business transformation.
Follow along on LinkedIn. If this piece spoke to you, reach out and say hello.
