Green seminar inspires business leaders

The 'Going Green - Inspiring People' seminar run by international events company MotivAction attracted 100 business executives to discuss how companies can reduce their environmental impact.

The 'Going Green - Inspiring People' seminar held in London's Commonwealth Club featured three environmental experts and examined climate change from scientific, financial and social angles.

In a push to bring climate change awareness to UK business, MotivAction organised the free event after a major internal transformation saw their own carbon footprint reduced by 30%.

Representatives from FTSE 100 companies including Deloitte, HBOS, ABN Amro, BP and ErnstandYoung attended the seminar, with 70% of companies attending already having an environmental policy in place.

Expert speakers were the foundation of the seminar, providing insights into the global problem from several different perspectives.

These included climate scientist Dr Paul Williams; who emphasised the unprecedented warming of the world over the last century, and that the UK is currently living three times above the global sustainable level with an average of 9 tonnes of carbon emitted per person annually.

Environmentalist Donnachadh McCarthy, whose house uses all five renewable energy sources spoke about the severe need to reduce the amount of resources we use.

He stated that tackling these problems would be good for business, with 82% of customers wanting to deal with environmentally responsible businesses.

Ex-accountant and author Anthony Day talked about the 'green bottom line' - how going green will financially benefit companies in the long term.

He emphasised that inevitable carbon taxes may emerge in as little as three years and indicated the first signs of a carbon conscious marketplace, urging companies to modify their business models in line with future resource constraints.

Edward Hanrahan, Chief Operating Officer of carbon offset company Climate Care also featured, explaining the low-cost ways in which companies can reduce their net emissions to zero.

The seminar itself was created to be as eco-friendly as possible: catering wasn't flown in and included English and French wines.

There were jugs of water instead of bottles, collateral was printed on 100% recycled paper and all attendees were strongly encouraged to travel to the event using public transport.

The entire event was calculated to have produced 9.3 tonnes of carbon, which was then offset with Climate Care.

The Going Green seminar complemented new 'green services' that MotivAction is now offering.

These include three team-building events aimed at creating climate change awareness, engagement and action, a host of new 'greener incentive travel awards' and the option for events to become 'carbon neutral' using an offset service.

Afterwards, MotivAction's MD Tim Waygood highlighted his vision for the future: "Yesterday was the first step in educating companies that we all need to change the way we run businesses.

"We are not living a sustainable way of life and the sooner we can influence others to alter the way they use resources the sooner we can try to turn things around.

"MotivAction are committed to using the events industry as a means to communicate this".

Back to top