Brief summary:

Events should be organized as sustainably as possible, whereby this term can refer to various aspects. Firstly, care should be taken to ensure that the event is organized in a resource-efficient manner and that the amount of waste generated is kept to a minimum. Purchasing decisions should be weighed up and checked to ensure that regional and, ideally, climate-neutral companies are supported. In general, it is important to provide access to the event for everyone, especially people with disabilities, and to ensure that all visitors can enjoy the event equally. When planning the event, the event team should take care to respect the limits of the team members.

Many people think of waste separation and saving electricity when they hear the term sustainability, but a sustainable event concept goes far beyond these topics. Events can also be guided by the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the UN. There is also a Handbook entry and a sponsorship program from the Green Office for the 17 goals. The goals can already be considered during the preparation phase and the event itself should be based on the SDGs, especially if it is a project that can be found on the sandbox platform.

This handbook entry will give you an initial insight into which aspects of sustainability need to be considered and ideas on how these can be implemented. The list is of course not exhaustive and can be expanded as desired. In addition, many topics can vary in importance and relevance from event to event. So please always think carefully about how to make your event as sustainable as possible.

Ecological sustainability

In terms of environmental sustainability, care should be taken to ensure that the event uses as few resources as possible and that the amount of waste is kept to a minimum.

When organizing the event, you should try to buy few or no new items that you can get second-hand or borrow. On the Sandkasten platform, for example, you will find a rental exchange, where you can find many items that could be helpful for a successful event and the additional fun factor. If you do have to buy new items, it is desirable if they are produced in a climate-neutral way, have a Fairtrade seal or are classified as ecologically harmless (e.g. paints and varnishes).

You should buy reusable bottles for the drinks supply at the event. Disposable PET bottles or aluminum cans unfortunately only have a very short lifespan and a poor ecological footprint compared to glass bottles or reusable PET bottles. The production of a plastic bottle or can is disproportionate to the one-off benefit. Please refrain from using disposable cups at your event in general, as they generate huge amounts of waste that can be safely avoided. You can easily rent reusable cups at the Sandkasten-Sharing.
If food is offered at your event, please make sure that you buy food from responsible sources. Think carefully about whether it really has to be the cheap sausage from the discount store. There are now many high-quality vegan and vegetarian alternatives to the usual meat products that taste the same. In terms of their ecological footprint, vegetarian and vegan products generally perform significantly better than meat.

To ensure that the area where you organize your event does not become a garbage dump, you should take care of garbage cans, as the TU campus unfortunately does not have the best network of garbage cans. Ideally, you should separate waste into paper, plastic, residual waste and glass. There are large containers for residual waste, paper and recyclables on campus, for example on the Okerufer or at the side entrance to the old building on Schleinitzstraße.

Garbage tips are the nastiest form of waste that can accumulate at events. One cigarette butt indiscriminately discarded in nature pollutes up to 40 liters of groundwater hundreds of them, especially at party events. So make sure that there are sufficient opportunities to dispose of cigarette butts. Distributing pocket ashtrays has proven to be a good idea, and signs on the correct disposal of cigarette butts also help. However, please do not rely on the conscious behavior of your visitors and meticulously search the event area for remains afterwards.

Social sustainability

Social sustainability at events means that the event is not organized at the expense of other people’s (mental) health. The term is very broad and often not as easy to apply to events as the ecological dimension of sustainability. The following section is therefore intended to provide a few suggestions on how social aspects can be implemented at the event.

Accessibility:

If you are organizing an event, it is desirable that all people who are interested in your event can participate. People with disabilities in particular are often forgotten during the organization, for example wheelchair users. So think about how you can organize your event barrier-free. Of course, the topic can also be extended to deaf or blind people. You can find more information on the website of Aktion Mensch.

Team spirit:

Hardly any major event is organized by just one person. If you have set up a team to take care of the organization of the event, you should make sure that everyone in the team feels comfortable. In volunteering, there are always people who do more than others, which is not a bad thing at first, as volunteering is defined by the motivation and time availability of the volunteers. However, make sure together that no one feels overworked or left alone in a stressful situation. Get together before the event and talk about your time management, dealing with stress and the distribution of tasks. It would be a shame if you couldn’t enjoy your own event because you overworked yourselves.

Responsibility:

Of course, as organizers, you also have a responsibility towards the people who attend your event. First and foremost, it is important that everyone feels comfortable. Smaller events that take place during the day are usually not critical. At party events, however, it is all the more important to create a space where no one is discriminated against or leaves with bad memories. In the party context, this is referred to as awareness. Here is a detailed guide with suggestions on how to make parties a safe place where everyone feels comfortable.

Economic sustainability

Now it’s all about the money! Taking economic sustainability aspects into account at an event completes the sustainability concept. In general, economic sustainability is understood to mean that profits are not directly in the foreground, but that long-term financial responsibility is assumed. But what does this mean for your event?

You can pay attention to where you make purchases for your event. Many large companies are criticized for not being particularly responsible with the planet or their own workforce. If you don’t want to support these companies, a quick internet search for products and companies that serve the same purpose but use resources, labor and logistics routes more responsibly will usually help. Incidentally, cycling to the local store is a carbon-neutral way of sourcing. You can even borrow a cargo trailer for large transports from Sandkasten!

Taking all aspects of sustainability into account when organizing your event may sound like a lot of extra work at first. However, many of the ideas presented here can be implemented quickly and only require a change in thinking. Please always try to consider as many aspects of sustainability as possible so that your event is not organized at the expense of people and the environment!