Up against some tough competition from other inspirational individuals within the events, travel and hospitality industry, judges deemed Ellie the winner thanks to her influence and ability to implement change within her business and the wider industry.
Having only been with the event management agency for one year at the time of her submission, Ellie had achieved an impressive amount during that time. Owners of the midland based event agency, Joe and Joanna Garland, started their sustainability journey over a decade ago, off of the back of their own passions for the environment, going on to nominate Ellie as Sustainability Champion after seeing her same appetite for the cause.
Ellie joined the business at the time when sustainability became a hot topic for the event and hospitality industry. Harnessing the market opportunity and a relationship with Greengage, she worked hard to create a communications strategy and road map for the future, allowing Eventurous to showcase their efforts so far, position themselves as experts and give them the platform to educate and raise awareness of sustainable events within the industry and with their clients.
Ellie says, “I had such an inspiring and insightful day at the Greengage Conference and Awards, I came away feeling even more motivated to make a difference, particularly after hearing about other people’s journeys within the industry. I can’t thank our colleagues at Greengage enough for supporting us throughout our journey for a greener future, my colleagues at Eventurous for their passion and care and the judges for the recognition for our hard work.”
The award comes after a successful year of recognition for Eventurous, winning awards for sustainability at the miaList and Famtastic awards, not before being named finalists at the Oscars of the event industry – the M&IT awards.
To date Eventurous has saved enough carbon emissions to equate to over 10,000 trees being planted, an achievement made possible by the installation of 500 solar panels. Based at the picturesque Mythe Farm, the Eventurous team are passionate about biodiversity, with their own on-site beehives, wildflower meadows, 12,000 newly planted trees and hedge restoration.
Following Ellie’s passion to make sustainability a priority across the entire business, a Green Team was recently formed, allowing for more initiatives to follow. Led by Ellie, each Green Team member now has responsibility for their department and recently the event experts have launched a new range of sustainable and socially responsible team building activities - a result of buy in from all departments.
In 2024, the award-winning corporate event management company are planning to measure their carbon impact as a business in the aim of using the data to focus their efforts towards reaching Net Zero. The sales team have also recently undergone training with experts in sustainable events – ISLA, to understand how they can use their event carbon calculator to help clients measure and reduce the carbon emissions of their corporate events.
Joanna ends, “Joe and I have always had a personal passion for sustainability and the environment and when Ellie joined, it was clear to us that she shared our values. She has worked incredibly hard to help us cement these shared values into wider company values, re-enforcing the importance of people and the planet to all of our stakeholders. The awards obtained this year are an incredible achievement for the team and we are delighted that Ellie has received personal recognition for her hard work in making this all happen.”
For more information about Eventurous and their sustainability efforts please visit https://www.eventurous.co.uk/sustainability/
