27 Feb 2024
In part two of the series, we look at some of the challenges and opportunities facing the sports activation events sector.
With the tournament season well underway and fan zones an integral part of the fan experience, Provision Events has had a flying start to 2024 supporting the Hero Dubai Desert Classic, Ras Al Khaimah Championship and more.
Gary Whelan, Managing Partner, and Sarah Cheverton, Marketing & Client Services Executive, of Provision Events, spoke to Sustainable Golf about some of the innovative steps helping deliver more sustainable events.
Provision Events is a supporter of the sustainable golf community helping accelerate sustainability in and through golf.
What are some of the key challenges faced by this industry?
Gary: Historically, it has been quite a wasteful industry through the nature of how events work and operate, both from single-use materials and from a logistics transport perspective with people travelling the globe and moving kit.
There's a whole ecosystem involved with events - suppliers of food and beverage, utility providers, or teams who put up fencing - and sustainability has often taken a backseat. But now we are seeing clients, from tournament organisers to sponsors, wanting to improve their sustainability. The spotlight is really on everybody who operates in events, and changing mindsets is where we're aiming to make a real shift change.
Where do you see some of the opportunities to make an impact?
Sarah: Single-use materials are quite an issue in the events industry, not just in sports, but across festivals, corporate events, and everything. There are not too many alternative options available right now so we focus on repurposing and recycling as much of our branding as we can.
If we have a client activating across multiple events, rather than changing the print each time we look to reuse that branding across the events. We're also encouraging clients to keep their branding after the event and re-use it to give it a second life.
Another major step is to invest in long-life materials. A great example of this is our structures being made from aluminium. They're endlessly reusable and we've used them for thousands of events so far and expect many more in the future.
This is quite a significant advantage over other companies that use more traditional single-use materials. We're trying to be a little bit different and diversify our offerings which help the environment.
What are some of the alternative uses that you've found for some materials?
Gary: We went into partnership with Event Cycle about 18 months ago. The main question was what to do with the materials after they've had their life at the event. So we provide all of the branding that isn't wanted by our clients to Event Cycle. They then work with a network of designers to repurpose the items. This could be anything from hessian bags to clothing to pieces of artwork to other branding that can be used at other events.
For example, we’re working with them to create large sack bags as an alternative to rubble bags. Then when it comes to transportation, we can put items into these bags instead of wrapping them in polythene or shrink wrap we would tend to have used and we can use them again and again and again. So this turned into a circular benefit.
Event Cycle also works with partner charities to either give items they produce away or sell them to raise money for the charities. We get some lovely stories back.
How do you tackle some of the logistical challenges to reduce travel and haulage impacts?
Sarah: It is one of our biggest challenges. When we are planning events, it's a case of really nailing planning the movements of both our staff and our kit.
So we try and do event hopping where possible. This works particularly well on the DP World Tour events where we have one event after another, especially in the UK, Europe and UAE as we have had at the start of this year. So we take the kit and then move it to another event, rather than taking it back to the warehouse.
We've also teamed up with Ecologi and created a climate action workforce which is exciting as all 24 employees at Provision contribute each month to offset our carbon footprint and support tree planting.
Provision Events are providing innovative fan experiences at many golf events – is there an opportunity here to engage the fans more on sustainability, to change behaviours and to educate people who are coming to the events?
Gary: We are seeing that more and more. The briefs we receive from clients so often have sustainability requirements of some kind, whether that's in the background demonstrating the materials we use, or actually on the creative side helping to demonstrate and tell the story about what they're doing in the sustainability space.
We worked with the DP World Tour at the Betfred British Masters, for example, and a few other events this season as part of the DP World Tour Green Drive initiative. We provided a simulator and then within the gameplay fans had to try and drive the green and when they did, the tour would donate and plant trees. This was aligned to tenth hole out on the course in the tournament and if the pros managed to drive the green then the tour would plant another 100 trees.
Similarly, we are seeing educational spaces within the experiences. We work with the USGA at the US Opens, partly to showcase their heritage with a museum area at their events and also to demonstrate the services, work and initiatives they deliver across the golfing spectrum. For instance this year, an activation was designed to communicate and educate fans on water usage and responsible water methods at golf courses. We set up a putting experience with a dry green for people to putt on versus a well-managed sustainable playing surface.
Sarah: We’re also constantly in discussions with our partners and suppliers and asking them to let us know when a new material comes out and we'll test it and we'll try it.
Sharing knowledge and transparency on what has been successful, and what's not been so successful are all important. New initiatives are coming out, new materials, new processes to take on and incorporate into everyday operations. It’s important to be on top of that and know what other industries are doing, even if it might not be in the sports or events world.
Then together we'll start to make even better progress.
You can read part one in the series below:
Part One - Utilising Fan Zones to Create More Sustainable Events
To see more highlights in action, search the sustainable golf highlights gallery now.
