Every community event leaves an impact. The question is whether it’s the one you intended.
From local markets and cultural festivals to sports carnivals, workshops and community celebrations, events bring people together. They create connection, strengthen communities and activate public spaces. But they also generate waste, consume energy and create emissions through transport, catering and operations.
The scale is often bigger than organisers realise. According to sustainability organisation A Greener Future, even festivals actively managing their environmental impact generated an average of 0.8kg of waste per attendee per day in 2024. And waste is only part of the picture. Analysis of approximately 1,000 events by sustainable events platform TRACE found that audience travel, catering, and venue energy consistently rank as the largest carbon hotspots, regardless of event format or size.
The good news? Sustainable events are no longer complicated, expensive or reserved for major festivals with dedicated sustainability teams. Global standards exist. Local support programs are available. And many of the most effective changes are surprisingly simple to implement.
Whether you’re managing a community hall, coordinating council events, overseeing a sports facility or supporting local organisers, this guide will help you focus on the actions that deliver the greatest environmental impact.
Most community event organisers aren’t short on good intentions. They’re short on time. Between managing bookings, coordinating suppliers, supporting hirers, organising volunteers, navigating approvals and hoping the weather cooperates, sustainability often ends up sitting somewhere near the bottom of an already overwhelming to-do list. Not because it isn’t important. Because when you’re trying to get an event off the ground, the most urgent request usually wins.
The challenge is that sustainability is no longer a nice-to-have. Communities increasingly expect it. Councils are setting emissions targets. Funding bodies are asking organisers to demonstrate environmental outcomes. And attendees are paying closer attention to the choices events make.
The encouraging news is that progress is happening. The recycling rate across assessed events increased from 38% in 2022 to 49% in 2024. Around 70% of assessed events now operate with a complete ban on single-use plastics. But those figures also reveal a significant opportunity. More than half of event waste still ends up in landfill, and nearly one in three events continues to rely on single-use plastics.
For community venues and local governments, these are practical gaps that can be addressed through better planning, clearer expectations and stronger operational processes.
This guide isn’t designed to add more work to your plate. It’s designed to help you focus on the actions that make the biggest difference.
A sustainable event is an event designed to minimise environmental impact while delivering positive social and economic outcomes for the community.
This can include:
Sustainable events aren’t about achieving perfection. They’re about making informed decisions that create continuous improvement over time.
The good news is you don't need to reinvent the wheel. Several established frameworks already exist to help event organisers reduce environmental impact and demonstrate their commitment to sustainability. We've grouped them by the type of organisation they're best suited to — so you can find the right starting point without the overwhelm.
Events Industry Council — Sustainability Pledge
The simplest place to start. The EIC Sustainability Pledge is free to sign, takes minutes, and signals a genuine long-term commitment to sustainable practice. It aligns with all 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals and covers environmental, social and economic sustainability. If your organisation has never formalised its approach to sustainability, this is the place to begin.
A practical and accessible option for community events of any size. Instead of asking attendees to donate, participants make sustainable behaviour swaps — reducing CO2e and waste in ways that are tracked and reported. Particularly well-suited to sports clubs, school events, community fairs and council-run activities where participation and fun are the goal.
Many national and regional governments offer free sustainability resources, event checklists and direct support for public event organisers. These local programs are often the most practical starting point because they're designed around your region's waste infrastructure, transport networks and regulatory requirements. Check what support exists in your area before building anything from scratch.
In Australia, the ACT Government's Sustainable Event Program is a strong example. In the UK, Julie's Bicycle provides free tools and guidance for cultural and community events. In New Zealand, Sustainable Events NZ — an initiative of the New Zealand Events Association — provides free practical resources, supplier guides and local success stories to help event organisers of any size reduce their environmental impact.
The international standard for sustainable event management, updated in 2024. Rather than a one-off checklist, ISO 20121 is a structured management system — designed to help organisations identify impacts, set goals and continuously improve over time. It applies to events of any size, but the investment required to implement it properly makes it best suited to councils, venues and organisations that host events regularly and want a credible, verifiable framework.
More than 100 organisations signed the Net Zero Carbon Events Pledge at COP26, committing to reduce their carbon footprints across their full events portfolio. A strong signal of intent for larger organisations with sustainability targets to meet and stakeholders to report to.
UNEP Sustainable Events Guidance
The UN Environment Programme's practical guidance for reducing the environmental footprint of events at scale. Widely used by government agencies, councils and large event organisers worldwide — particularly useful as a reference point for organisations that need to demonstrate alignment with international standards in funding applications or public reporting.
Before building your own framework from scratch, check what support already exists in your area.
Across almost every sustainability framework, the same priorities emerge. If you’re unsure where to start, focus on these six areas. If you’re looking for the fastest sustainability win, start here.
When people think about sustainable events, they usually think about recycling bins, reusable cups and reducing waste. But one of the most impactful sustainability decisions often happens long before the event begins. It’s about making better use of existing spaces.
Community halls, sports facilities, meeting rooms, libraries, arts centres and recreation spaces represent significant investments in infrastructure and embodied carbon. When these spaces sit empty, communities receive less value from those investments. When they’re actively used and accessible, the need for additional infrastructure is reduced, and communities gain more value from assets they’ve already built.
Better utilisation of existing community spaces supports multiple sustainability outcomes at once. It maximises the use of public assets, strengthens community participation, and helps councils make better use of existing resources. It also aligns closely with broader goals around sustainable cities and communities and responsible consumption and production.
At SpacetoCo, this principle sits at the heart of what we do. We believe communities already have incredible spaces. The opportunity is to help more people discover, access, and use them.
The more effectively communities use the spaces they’ve already built, the more sustainable those communities become.
What is a sustainable event?
A sustainable event is an event designed to minimise environmental impact while creating positive social and economic outcomes. This includes reducing waste, encouraging sustainable transport, minimising energy consumption and supporting responsible procurement.
How can you make an event more sustainable?
The most effective actions include improving recycling systems, reducing single-use plastics, encouraging public transport, using local suppliers, reducing energy consumption and measuring environmental outcomes.
What is ISO 20121?
ISO 20121 is the international standard for sustainable event management. It provides a framework for identifying impacts, setting sustainability objectives and continuously improving event performance.
Why is sustainability important for community events?
Sustainable events help reduce environmental impact, align with community expectations, support council sustainability goals and demonstrate responsible stewardship of public resources.
What is the biggest sustainability opportunity for community venues?
One of the most overlooked opportunities is improving utilisation of existing community spaces. Better use of existing infrastructure reduces the need for new facilities while maximising the value of community assets.
You don’t need to tackle everything at once. Choose the area where your organisation has the biggest gap and start there. For many venues, that’s waste management. For others, it might be transport, supplier engagement or reporting. The key is to begin.
If you want to go deeper on this topic, our CoLab webinar series explores exactly these challenges. In CoLab 15: Zero Waste for Community Venues, we discuss how community organisations are activating underused spaces, increasing community access and building stronger, more sustainable venues.
Small improvements made consistently over time will have a far greater impact than a perfect sustainability plan that never gets implemented. And if you’re looking for ways to improve utilisation, streamline bookings and make better use of your community assets, we’d love to show you how SpacetoCo can help.
SpacetoCo helps councils and community venues unlock the potential of the spaces they already have - more bookings, less admin, and he utilisation data to show your environment impact.