How to Measure and Reduce Your Event Carbon Footprint
- Tatiana
- Jan 19
- 7 min read
Updated: Jan 20
There are a lot of logistics that come into play when putting on an event, from travel to venues, suppliers to materials.
Together, these elements create your event carbon footprint, showing where emissions are coming from and where real reductions can be made.
Without any accurate carbon footprint measurement for events, sustainability efforts rely on assumptions. This makes it almost impossible to measure or reduce in a meaningful way.
With that in mind, it's important to learn how to measure an event carbon footprint clearly, what data matters most, and how the right event carbon measurement platform helps turn insight into action.
What Is An Event Carbon Footprint?
An event carbon footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced by an event, across all activities involved in its planning, delivery and attendance.
This includes everything from:
Energy Usage
Heating
Delegate and Staff Travel
Waste
Catering
Accommodation
...and more!
These elements can vary per company and event, making it integral for organisers to track their own usage for true reduction strategies based on the biggest hotspots.
How To Measure Your Event Carbon Footprint?
Carbon footprint measurement for events starts with understanding what should be included for better sustainable event management.
An event carbon footprint covers all the activities required to plan, deliver and attend an event, not just what happens on site.
The main areas to measure typically include:
Travel and transport: This is often the largest source of emissions and includes flights, rail, car travel, taxis and freight movements.
Venues and energy use: Electricity, heating, cooling and on-site fuel consumption across build, live days and breakdown.
Accommodation: Hotels and other overnight stays linked to the event, based on location, length of stay and occupancy.
Materials and production: Temporary structures, staging, signage, printed materials, furniture and build elements.
Catering and hospitality: Food and drink choices, sourcing, preparation, packaging and food waste.
Freight and logistics: Shipping of equipment, set builds and exhibition materials, including international and last-mile transport.
Waste and disposal: General waste, recycling, composting and landfill, including what happens after the event ends.
Measuring each of these areas gives a complete picture of your event's carbon footprint within scopes 1, 2 and 3. Without this level of detail, it can be difficult to identify hotspots or make meaningful reductions.
That's what makes using an event carbon measurement platform so powerful, turning your complex event activity into clear, actionable insights.
What Are The First Pieces Of Data To Look For At An Event?
Start with the fundamentals. Begin by tracking attendee travel and supply chain movement, as these are often the biggest contributors to an event’s footprint.
This includes total attendee numbers, supplier deliveries and on-site energy use.
Together, these data points form the foundation of a complete and accurate event carbon footprint report.
Why Measure the Carbon Impact of Your Events?
There are many reasons to measure the carbon impact of your events, whether you're leaning into sustainable event management or you want to save costs.
Meeting Client and Regulatory Expectations
One of the biggest factors for reducing your event carbon footprint may come from client and regulatory expectations.
Clients increasingly want clear evidence of environmental responsibility, particularly through consistent reporting and transparency.
At the same time, regulations and industry standards are becoming more defined.
Organisers are being asked to align with recognised frameworks like ISO 20121, provide auditable data and demonstrate progress over time.
By staying ahead with carbon footprint measurement for events, companies will be able to make valuable changes and stay informed.
Reducing Costs and Operational Waste
Beyond compliance, measuring impact highlights where resources are being used inefficiently.
In many cases, the largest sources of emissions are directly linked to cost, including:
Excess freight and unnecessary transport
Avoidable travel for staff, suppliers or equipment
Over-ordering materials and temporary builds
Inefficient energy use on-site
With clearer insight, organisers can make more informed decisions such as:
Reducing build materials and production scope
Optimising logistics and delivery schedules
Choosing venues more carefully based on location and energy use
Adjusting catering volumes to reduce waste
Over time, this leads to leaner operations, lower costs and events that are more efficient by design.
Strengthening Brand Reputation and Credibility
Increasingly, audiences and stakeholders are paying closer attention to how events address environmental impact.
By measuring impact properly and leaning into carbon-neutral event planning, organisers can communicate with confidence on their sustainability practices, while supporting more transparent conversations with clients, partners and attendees.
Over time, this builds credibility, strengthens brand reputation and positions events as responsibly delivered through sustainable event management.
Reducing An Event's Carbon Footprint
Reducing an event’s carbon footprint starts with knowing where impact is highest, making smarter choices across the event, and planning early to cut emissions.
The sections below explore how to focus on the biggest impacts, make practical changes, and integrate sustainability from the start.
Focusing on What Makes the Biggest Difference
Not every part of an event contributes equally to its overall impact.
In most cases, the largest sources of impact include:
Travel for attendees, staff and suppliers
Freight and logistics
Venue energy use
Materials and temporary builds
By identifying these high-impact areas early, organisers can focus time and budget where it will make a real difference.
This avoids spreading effort too thinly and helps ensure reduction plans are based on evidence rather than assumptions.
Making Smarter Choices Across the Event
Many opportunities to reduce impact sit within the initial decisions like venue location, supplier selection, production methods and catering choices.
When sustainability is considered alongside logistics and budget, organisers can choose options that reduce impact without compromising delivery.
Reducing Impact Through Better Planning
The most effective reductions in an event carbon footprint often come from planning ahead, as decisions made at the earliest stages shape every aspect of the event.
By embedding carbon footprint measurement into timelines, budgets and briefing processes, organisers can make sustainability a natural part of delivery.
The Challenges and Complexities of Carbon Footprint Measurement for Events
Carbon reporting for events can be challenging when there are so many moving parts involved in sustainable event management.
Understanding these complexities is an important step towards measuring an event carbon footprint accurately and reporting with confidence.
Fragmented Data
One of the most difficult parts of tracking an event carbon footprint comes from fragmented data across suppliers, venues and logistics.
Often, organisations rely on multiple partners to provide information, each using different formats, levels of detail and timelines.
This makes it difficult to bring data together consistently or gain a clear view of overall impact.
As a result, gaps, estimates and manual workarounds are common, increasing the risk of inaccuracies and making reliable reporting harder to achieve.
It doesn't have to be that way though, with Scope's event tracking allowing for suppliers to enter data directly into the software and team members to be assigned modules for completion.
High-Emission Areas
High-emission areas are often the hardest parts of an event to measure accurately.
These areas typically include:
Attendee, staff and supplier travel, particularly flights and long-distance journeys
Freight and logistics, including international shipping and last-mile deliveries
Venue energy use across build, live days and breakdown
Temporary structures, staging and production materials
Accommodation linked to the event
For example, travel usually makes up a large part of an event’s impact, but the data behind it is often incomplete due to indirect routes and behaviours.
With limited visibility across audiences and suppliers, it becomes harder to gather reliable information and understand where the biggest reductions are possible.
An event carbon measurement platform helps bring this information together in one place, using consistent assumptions and data sources to fill gaps where exact data is not available.
This makes it easier to understand true impact, improve accuracy over time and focus reduction efforts where they will have the greatest effect.
Inconsistent Methodologies and Reporting Standards
Different approaches to measuring emissions can make it difficult to compare results or report with confidence.
Without a consistent methodology, the same event carbon footprint can look very different depending on what is included, how data is estimated and which emission factors are used.
This often leads to challenges such as:
Emissions being calculated using different assumptions across teams or suppliers
Reporting that cannot be compared year on year or across events
Sustainability claims that are harder to validate or defend
Using a standardised approach helps ensure your carbon footprint measurement for events is consistent and aligned with recognised reporting expectations.
Reducing Your Event Carbon Footprint For Carbon-Neutral Event Planning
Reducing your event carbon footprint starts with understanding where impact is coming from and focusing on the areas that matter most.
Rather than tackling everything at once, effective carbon-neutral event planning prioritises key sources of emissions and tracks progress over time.
An event carbon measurement platform can support this approach by focusing on the core areas that typically drive event emissions:
Travel for attendees, staff and suppliers
Venue energy use across build, live days and breakdown
Freight, logistics and production movements
Materials, temporary builds and waste
Catering and accommodation linked to the event
By bringing these areas together in one place, organisers can move beyond estimates, identify clear reduction opportunities and plan events that are more efficient by design.
At a previous event, Scope tracked the total waste emissions as 15.8 kgCO2e, made up of 12.7 kgCO2e general waste, 1.0 kgCO2e food waste, and 2.1 kgCO2e company general waste.
With the event data in mind, Scope recommended that for future event reduction, it would be integral to:
Review waste management at the venue stage by requesting detailed waste plans in advance
Select venues with clear waste tracking and reuse processes
Capture waste data by type to improve accuracy and identify opportunities to reduce landfill and associated emissions
Having the knowledge behind the strategy is the core way to ensure reduction is possible, and an event carbon measurement platform is key.
FAQ
Q: What makes an event sustainable?
A: An event is considered sustainable when it's planned and delivered in a way that reduces environmental impact and uses resources efficiently. Sustainable event management focuses on understanding an event carbon footprint, making informed decisions across areas like travel, energy, materials and waste, and using data to reduce emissions. This can be a long journey, but taking the steps is what matters.
Q: How do I calculate my carbon footprint?
A: To calculate your carbon footprint, you need to measure the greenhouse gas emissions linked to your activities, such as travel, energy use, materials and waste. This involves collecting data, applying recognised emission factors and bringing the results together into a total figure, usually measured in CO₂e. For events, accurate carbon footprint measurement helps identify the biggest sources of impact and supports more informed reduction planning.
Q: What tools can you use for carbon footprint measurement for events?
A: Scope Carbon Tracking Solutions is a great sustainability tool that can be used for business and event tracking. Our platform helps organisers track hotspots, calculate total impact accurately, and use insights to support carbon-neutral event planning.
Scope: Your Partner For Sustainable Event Management
Take the guesswork out of reducing your event carbon footprint with Scope Carbon Tracking.
Measure your emissions accurately, pinpoint the biggest hotspots, and turn insights into action.
Making a difference starts with taking that first step, and at Scope we're here to support you every step of the way.
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