Sustainability First

In today's environmentally-conscious business landscape, sustainability can no longer be an afterthought when planning corporate events. To truly minimize the environmental impact, Xpedition starts with sustainability as a fundamental principle from the very inception of our event planning process.

Here are three ways of working we embrace to ensure our events are good for the Earth:

1. Be Creative and Invest in Sustainable Solutions

We are committed to using all reusable or recyclable set-ups and decor. For two recent events, we either built a set-up to reuse at future activations or found other ways to repurpose the materials. At one execution, we achieved 70% of the materials repurposed, and for another, 100% were stored, repurposed, or recycled.

An easy and often-cited solution is to rent plants and furniture. But we push further, thinking about how we can stretch a staging across multiple events or freshen up old materials to give them new life. We've used set-ups across multiple activations in a season or for the same event over many years. We are also resourceful in how we create builds that use as little material as possible but still meet the needs, as we did with a recent set-up on a beach. Thankfully, the natural beauty we are trying to preserve provided us with a great backdrop!

To select sustainable materials and build ingenious set-ups may cost more upfront, but by being thoughtful — and imaginative — from the start, we can show how it will pay for itself over time with reuse at other events.

2. Pay Attention to Details

On average, events create 2.5 pounds of landfill-bound waste per person per day. For a 1000-person, three-day event, that translates to the weight of three compact cars! So, it's crucial that we all go beyond learning the basics and, with every event, aim to learn something new and research new solutions to meet our zero-waste goals.

A seemingly simple example demonstrates the need to gather knowledge and new resources: at a recent activation, we served cold brew coffees. We learned that to serve a coffee beverage (even a cold one), the default cups were plastic-lined, so we had to research a new solution. We also wanted to avoid a logo sticker that would make the cups hard to recycle, so we sourced paper sleeves. To make this execution successful, onsite teams had to source and use recycle bins.

We are continuously pushing ourselves to think through every aspect — waste, energy, transportation, water usage — and ensure we make the most earth-friendly choice available.

3. Lead with Passion

At Xpedition, we are passionate about creating exceptional experiences while prioritizing environmental sustainability. It requires meticulous planning, continuous education, inventive problem-solving, and an unwavering commitment to making eco-friendly choices at every step.

While this approach demands significant effort and resources, we believe it is a responsibility we owe to our planet and future generations. Sometimes we have to ask clients for more budget or time to get to a better solution. Other times, it might mean asking more of the venues and continuing to evolve plans as we partner with them on execution. But we've seen that by leading with passion and dedicating ourselves to sustainable practices, we can create memorable events that leave a lasting positive impact on the Earth, setting an example for our industry and inspiring others to follow suit!