Sustainability leads at FCM M&E’s Idea’s Exchange 2.0

On 7 November, several businesses attended Idea’s Exchange 2.0, delivered by FCM Meetings & Events at the Hyatt Centric Hotel in Melbourne. According to the event’s organisers, the Exchange was designed to line up with businesses now beginning to consider challenges beyond the Covid-19 pandemic. “One of the stand-outs for (businesses) is how sustainability will play a much larger role for them in the present and the future,” said FCM Meetings & Events general manager Simone Seiler. “We wanted to deliver something a little bit different, with secret rooms and cookies that offered edible clues, with four sessions of 30 minutes to drill down into the content, time to discuss, ask questions, before a meal to digest the findings of the evenings.” The event focused primarily on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG), focusing on sustainability and its importance in the corporate world. The topics covered global food chains, including a presentation talking the audience through the FCM Global Consulting Survey Results – Trends. “In keeping with the importance of sustainability, there were no paper or plastics used, and all food and drinks were locally sourced and sustainably made,” Seiler enforced. Headline speaker Neil Pharaoh (pictured above), director of Tanck and chair of the Climate Action Network Australia, discussed how leadership in the future meant more focus on the ‘S’ in ESG. “The ‘E’ for environment incorporates climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, resources, water, waste, pollution, deforestation, you would’ve all come across that in your jobs and life, and things like that,” Pharaoh said. “The ‘G’ for governance is things like pay bribery, corruption, lobbying, social, which is this big area in between, is everything from working conditions, child labour, labour standards, local communities, how you connect with communities, conflict, health and safety, and employee well-being.” Pharoah added that, in his experience, Australia was working hard towards ‘environment’ and ‘governance’, but not on the S – ‘social’. “We haven’t quite connected to the ‘S’ yet. We’re not connecting the dots around what the S stands for. It’s starting to shift the dial in an Australian landscape,” Pharoah said. “We’re already seeing this through methodology like quiet quitting, protests around different events and activities, and people buying products differently as a result.”