The latest Annual Benchmarking Research Report by International Corporate Events (ICE), produced in collaboration with Cvent, has revealed the most concerning aspects of adopting sustainable practices – told from the perspective of corporate events professionals. The report collates responses from event planners in the UK, German and the US.
It shows that, despite cross-industry emphasis on eco-friendly practices, corporate event creators are still struggling to incorporate sustainability into their planning process. 70.2% of those surveyed cite cost as the biggest barrier. Lack of resources and knowledge are also significant challenges, with 54.4% and 45.6% of respondents respectively listing these as barriers to sustainable event planning.
At the same time, the ICE report highlights a growing shift towards artificial intelligence adoption, with 41% of planners already integrating AI into their workflows.
Founder and CEO of ICE Anita Howard commented: “It’s our belief that these latest results are concerned with the continual evolution of green practices and the confusion around lots of varying steps to achieve more sustainable event. “It’s about having the time, budget and clear knowledge [to make progress].”
Cvent marketing director for Europe Felicia Asiedu said that increasing use of AI for data analysis was a very positive trend: “The uptick in adoption of AI across the industry is really positive for the sector, in particular its use as a tool to analyse data and subsequently use those insights to help organisers create more personalised delegate experiences.”
She explained, however, that while the changes were positive, “the number of respondents using it for these purposes is still low when compared to content generation”.
In addition to AI, event planners are increasingly relying on event technologies, including platforms for event registration (used by 90.9% of respondents), hybrid event solutions (74.5%) and web-streaming (72.7%). Emerging technologies like ChatGPT (43.6%) and augmented reality (16.4%) are starting to make their mark, though they have yet to see widespread adoption across the industry.
“It’s clear that more needs to be done to provide planners with the resources and knowledge they need to make sustainability a standard practice, rather than an afterthought,” Anita Howard concluded.
