MICEBOOK - POWER 50 GREEN CHAMPIONS COVER 1 - Flipbook - Page 20
Page 20
Sarah Threlfall
Sarah Yeats
Saskya Liney
Managing Director, Brightspace
Events
Managing Director, Sledge
Head of Sustainability, emc3 and
Founder, From Now
At home, Sarah is a 'Green
Champion' – she recycles and reuses, only
buys second hand clothing, walks or
cycles where possible, buys food without
packaging from ethical and local
businesses, uses the milkman... the list is
endless.
This passion is interwoven throughout her
events agency, Brightspace. As well as
making changes to reduce its negative
impact, where she can, she is taking it a
step further and using the business and
clients’ events as a force for good in the
world.
Her goals include driving change by
asking every supplier and client to
consider sustainability and suggest better
options, using her social reach and
influence as a founding AIEA (Alliance of
Independent Agencies) sustainability
group member to share knowledge and
practical action across the industry, living
the values of a B Corp company with the
aim of being certified within two years,
and wherever commercially viable,
choosing clients and events that are
actively reducing carbon emissions with
no or low fly destinations.
Brightspace seeks out venues who are
making positive changes, suggests meat
free or vegan menus and water fountains
and reusable bottles, recommends local
providers, supports local and ethical
businesses, uses recycled and recyclable
materials and more. Sarah now plans to
carry out a full carbon impact
assessment for Brightspace activity and
purchase an event emissions
measurement tool to be included without
charge to clients.
Brightspace has launched a sustainability
hub on its website to share learnings with
other event profs. As a result of her high
profile in this area, the clients Sarah has
attracted in the past two years are the
perfect fit and she was proud to be asked
to work at COP26 with the New York Times
on its ‘Climate Hub’ event.
Sarah describes herself as ‘sustainability
sponge’ latching onto as many role
models as possible to supercharge her
own knowledge and education which is
key to making her commitments concrete.
Sledge recognised the need to change
its entire structure to address the climate
emergency and place people at the
forefront, prompting the transition to an
Employee-Owned Business.
At the same time, the agency was in the
process of developing a sustainability
vision, goals and roadmap, which was
launched in September 2022. Sledge’s
vision is to create a benchmark for
sustainable best practice by minimising
its own environmental impact and the
impact of its clients, through a pro-active, consultative and measurable
approach.
A sustainability advocate, MD Sarah
Yeats has been essential to driving the
EOT/EOB transition, ensuring ongoing
action in terms of its implementation,
educating employees about the vision,
and inspiring them to play their part. By
championing a flat-level agency
structure, she encourages thoughts and
feedback, and ensures everyone has a
voice.
Sarah and the board revised the annual
budget to include dedicated
sustainability training and initiatives for
employees. This enabled the agency to
join isla, enlist Times Ten to re-evaluate
its values, and engage sustainability
consultants Syntiro.
Sledge is developing a SMS
(Sustainability Management System) and
has overhauled its office practices and
begun measuring its carbon emissions.
By advocating for flexible working alone, it
has reduced emissions by 737kg per
week.
Employees are in the process of
developing a Responsible Client Decision
Tree with the support of Syntiro, which is
designed to ensure the team has a
robust process in place when it comes to
considering associated risks and
opportunities across client events.
Sledge has implemented isla’s TRACE
carbon measurement platform and
checklists across all client projects,
sustainability is now a line item in
budgets, and sustainable solutions are
included in all RFPs and pitches.
An advocate for sustainability outside of
work, Saskya leveraged her background
in events and passion for improvement to
make sustainable action more
manageable and achievable. This began
internally at emc3, where she helped to
educate and inspire the team, sharing
resources and hosting workshops and
creative ideation sessions.
This energy and ambition spread
company-wide and beyond, and it wasn’t
long before her passion for championing
sustainability got noticed as in 2021, she
became Head of Sustainability for emc3
as well as an isla Board Member.
Since then, Saskya has been working with
the emc3 team to bring real change to
businesses. The agency utilises Trace to
calculate carbon footprints, then offset
areas like staff travel through tree
planting (it has planted over 7,000 trees
so far) and has built partnerships with
numerous charities and sustainable
organisations. emc3 also works closely
with clients to evaluate their sustainability
performance through benchmarking and
reporting and offers carbon tracking and
offsetting services.
As the momentum grew, emc3 expanded
its action beyond internal initiatives. One
of the primary challenges faced was
garnering buy-in from clients and
stakeholders. Many event budgets don’t
have sustainability costs built into them,
because companies often don’t
understand the benefits of incorporating
sustainable practices. So, Saskya set
about raising awareness through
workshops, speaker sessions and even an
event to help inspire change in the
industry. Across the many sustainable
workshops they presented, emc3 has
been able to reach and educate over
500 attendees in total.
Saskya and the leadership team at emc3
have wholeheartedly embraced
sustainability, allocating resources and
funds to build a dedicated team that
would propel efforts forward. This has
grown into a much larger mission and
new business entity, From Now, which
Sasyka founded together with some of
the emc3 team.
