Speakers and facilitators for the fourth annual Sustainable Events Summit include:
- Tristram Stuart, Author, “Waste – Uncovering the Global Food Scandal” – opening keynote
- Wayne Hemingway MBE, Founder, Hemingway Design, Vintage Festival – afternoon keynote
- Guy Bigwood, President, Green Meeting Industry Council – afternoon keynote
- Samme Allen, Business Development Manager, Barbican
- Mike Bell, Bellamy’s Ltd
- Nick de Bois MP, Chair, All Party Parliamentary Group for the UK Events Industry
- Katy Carlisle, Positive Impact
- Caroline Coyle, Caroline Coyle Consultancy
- Lee Dobson, Head of Events Management, The Barbican Centre
- Emma Fitzgerald, Jack Morton Worldwide
- Tom James, Three Hands
- Mark Linehan, Managing Director, Sustainable Restaurants Association
- Joe Oliver, Founder of BASH
- Juliet Ross-Kelly, Eco Action Partnership, Isle of Wight Festival
- Rebecca Saunders, Sustainable Events Ltd
- Russell Seymour, Sustainability Manager, Marylebone Cricket Club
- Martin Shepherdly, BeThere Global
- Andrew Walker, Eco Efficient Events
- Emma Wellman, Sustainability Advisor, Earls Court & Olympia
- Giselle Weybrecht, author, “The Sustainable MBA”
- Andrew Williams, London Leader for 2011 and Summit Chair
Speaker biographies
Tristram Stuart, author, “Waste – Uncovering the Global Food Scandal”
Using a combination of historical insight and front-line investigation into modern food production, Tristram Stuart makes regular contributions to academic, television, radio and newspaper debates on the social and environmental aspects of food. His first book, The Bloodless Revolution, ‘a genuinely revelatory contribution to the history of human ideas’ (Daily Telegraph), was published in 2006. His latest book, Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal (Penguin, 2009), winner of one and finalist for three other international prizes, reveals that modern Western countries waste up to half of their food supplies, and that tackling this problem is one of the simplest ways of reducing pressure on the environment and on global food supplies. In the space of just two hours in December 2009, Tristram and a partnership of charities fed 5000 people in Trafalgar Square with free hot curry, bicycle-churned smoothies, and three tonnes of fresh groceries, using only ingredients that otherwise would have been wasted. Tristram is senior research associate at the Centre for World Environmental History, University of Sussex and is on the advisory board of the Sustainable Restaurant Association; since the publication of Waste he has been helping NGOs, governments, businesses and institutions in several countries implement reductions in food waste. In 2011 Tristram was awarded the international environmental award, The Sophie Prize.
Wayne Hemingway MBE, Founder, Hemingway Design, Vintage Festival
Wayne and the team put on a major new cultural event in August 2010, the wonderful Vintage (in 2010 at Goodwood). Full explanation about this celebration of music, fashion, film , art, design and food at www.vintagebyhemingway.co.uk Did this change the face of summer festivals? You bet it did and it continues to scoop up awards.
Wayne has got a massive vinyl collection. He started collecting at Wigan Casino and Blackpool Mecca in the 70’s and has thousands of 70’s and 80’s dance, disco, funk, northern soul and crossover records . He DJ’ed when he was a teenager and now rocks da house for fun at charity events and might be doing a turn at Vintage this summer.
Samme Allen, Business Development Manager, Barbican
Samme is the Business Development Manager at the Barbican Centre and Chair of the London City Selection, a marketing consortium of venues within the City of London. Samme has been a member of MPI for 5 years and has served on various committees and joined the board as VP of Sponsorship 2008-2009.
She is now President Elect of the UK & Ireland Chapter taking the role of President from July 1st. Samme has been working in various capacities within the event industry globally for 10 years including event planning roles in both the UK and Hong Kong. Samme’s goal is to continue to work hard with key stakeholders within the industry and outside the industry to maintain and develop a rich global events community.
Mike Bell, Bellamy’s Ltd
Mike works as a freelance event, experiential & exhibition designer and visualiser for live experiences, as well as project managing the ideas, to help create the produced solution on-site. Mike has designed and produced award-winning live events – in the UK, USA, Far & Middle East – working with various agencies creating memorable events, exhibitions & experiences all over the world.
In addition a background in creative staging companies – working at senior level within Creative Technology, Delta Sound, Unit One, and founder of MCL – Mike has a robust knowledge and network of technical expertise to help realise a whole range of creative concepts.
Guy Bigwood, President, Green Meeting Industry Council
Guy’s mission is to increase the sustainability of the events industry. He is responsible for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) at MCI, the world´s largest integrated event and association management company. With over 1000 staff in 5 continents, Guy runs one of the most comprehensive CSR programs in the industry. He is the president of the Green Meeting Industry Council, and involved in the APEX, ISO20121 and GRI Standard processes.
Recognized as a “green leader”, and one of the 50 most influential people in the meetings industry, Guy is a pioneer and expert on creating sustainable events and destinations. He manages a global consulting team that advises the UN, associations, corporates, governments, convention bureaus and venues worldwide. His latest management insights are captured in the award winning Copenhagen Sustainable Meetings Protocol.
Nick de Bois, MP
Because of his extensive experience outside of politics and in particular his business experience Nick brings with him a wealth of understanding of SME business issues to Parliament. In particular he led Rapiergroup, a leading event management organisation for over 25 years, building the company from a small enterprise in the early nineties to a £20 million T/0 group based in the US and UK. The company currently employs approx 100 employees.
Since being elected to Parliament in May 2010 Nick has maintained a high profile on business issues affecting the SME sector and challenging waste and inefficiency across the civil service through his role on the Public Administration Select Committee. Most recently he has been a public champion of the government’s reform proposals for Health and establishing the Big Society.
Katy Carlisle, Positive Impact
Katy works for Positive Impact, a not for profit organisation providing sustainability education to the events industry through practical workshops (approved by Leeds Metropolitan University and the UK Centre for Events Management) as well as resources and tools to support all sustainability journeys.
From a background in teaching, Katy was inspired by sustainability and worked in a Manchester sustainable conference venue before combining this with her education experience at Positive Impact. She is passionate about all areas of sustainability and also volunteers for Manchester Friends of the Earth, for whom she has delivered educational talks and organised a number of events.
Caroline Coyle, Caroline Coyle Consultancy
Caroline is an independent consultant in sustainability for tourism & events. In 1999, she returned to college, studying part-time to achieve a BSc in Environmental Management, and, later, an MSc in Business Strategy, Politics & the Environment. Caroline launched her consultancy in 2004 to support organisations wishing to adopt a more sustainable business model.
Her clients have included an association, a travel management company, a major international event, a production company and a number of destination management companies. Caroline is an Associate of the Institute of Environmental Management & Assessment (IEMA), an Authorised Auditor for ABTA’s Travelife Sustainability System.
Tom James, Three Hands
With over 8 years experience in the corporate events industry, Tom has for the past 2 years been working for Three Hands, a company that develops people from business through real life projects out in the community. So rather than sending managers to the Lake District to build rafts, Three Hands develops leadership skills for people from business through innovative projects with charities and community organisations.
Tom has recently completed a Masters in Corporate Responsibility and works closely with Emmaus South Lambeth and the Southside youth projects in a volunteering capacity.
Joe Oliver, Founder of BASH.
Joe has won an array of industry awards and appeared on CNN, BBC News and in numerous national publications. In 2008, he was selected by the Mayor of London to be a London Leader, a position awarded to those who have proved excellence in their fields, to represent the capital.
In 2009 Joe was personally responsible for organizing over 120 green events, represented the Foreign Office and British Council in China as one of the UK’s top innovators, founded 33,000sqft of arts and fashion studios in central London and set up two charities.
In 2010 Joe visited 14 countries, co-founded a company in China specializing in sustainable lifestyles, co-created and presented a TVshow on the subject called Eco-Nation Super Flyway.
Juliet Ross-Kelly, Director Eco-Action Partnership
Juliet Ross-Kelly worked in fashion PR in London for 13 years before setting up her own PR and Events agency in Cornwall in 2006.
Her move towards ‘green’ issues started with one of her first clients in Cornwall, Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen Cornwall restaurant. The now world acclaimed restaurant chain, run as a charity to help disadvantaged teenagers, was set up with environmental and socially responsible ethics at the heart of their business. So impressed was she with this holistic attitude that Juliet has since chosen clients with similar ambitions, in both the PR and Events side of her business.
In order to further her offering to clients she completed her Environmental Systems Management training to BS8555 level with Cornwall based Envision.
Rebecca Saunders, Sustainable Events Ltd
Rebecca’s work experience includes recruitment and managerial roles within the hospitality sector in Europe. Rebecca worked as a Positive Impact volunteer prior to joining the team permanently. Rebecca has completed a BA in Geography and a post-graduate diploma in Events Management and PR. Rebecca’s expertise and experience in both sustainability and the event industry means she is ideally positioned to provide support on the implementation of sustainability within the event industry.
Positive Impact is a not for profit education project providing sustainability education for the event industry.
Sustainable Events Ltd is a company providing support to businesses in the event industry who wish to implement and measure sustainability initiatives.
Russell Seymour, Sustainability Manager, Marylebone Cricket Club
Russell Seymour started his working career relatively late having spent eleven years at University ‘collecting’ various degrees, and has a background in ecology, environmental sciences and biodiversity management.
Having spent some time in a joint career managing a restaurant (he loves food!) and teaching, one of his students changed the course of his career by asking “you like cricket, don’t you?”. Within weeks Russell was a supervising steward working at Test Matches and One-Day Internationals at Lord’s Ground, and he has been there ever since. Russell’s role has changed a number of times while at Lord’s, developing into a general “Special Projects” role under the new Chief Executive in 2006. From this a focus on environmental management and sustainable development grew culminating in the specialised “Sustainability Manager” role he is now in.
Russell worked with British Standards on the pilot study for the BS 8901 Sustainable Event Management Standard before its launch in 2007 and is on the UK mirror committee for the development of the ISO 20121 standard. Russell has been instrumental in bringing together a coalition of sports venues, clubs and governing bodies to discuss, review and share best practice in managing their activities more sustainably.
Martin Shepherdly – CEO, BeThere Global Ltd.
With over 30 years experience of the live events industry, Martin now runs BeThere Global, providing innovative, practical and affordable recording and web broadcasting of conferences and events.
Martin left art college with qualifications in graphics and advertising. However, he very quickly fell into the conference production world by taking a freelance contract designing audio-visual programs for a large incentive company. He soon decided that the corporate events world was more fun than advertising could ever be and before long was designing and producing large scale conferences and product launches for major global brands. Since then he has been responsible for hundreds of productions for an eclectic mix of clients in many parts of the world.
Martin founded BeThere Global Ltd in 2008. BeThere Global provided webcasting for the Sustainable Events Summit in 2010 and we are delighted to be providing the service again this year.
Andrew Walker – Managing Director of Eco-Efficient Events,
Eco-Efficient Events is a Business Event Sustainability Consulting, Education and Training Company based in London.
Andrew launched the company with the belief that organizations and the people within them have an amazing opportunity to create business events that increase opportunities for learning, motivation, networking, productivity and social legacy, while at the same time decreasing waste, emissions, energy/water consumption, and cost.
In a volunteer capacity, Andrew serves on the International Board of Directors for the Green Meeting Industry Council (GMIC) and is Vice Chair of the Canadian National Mirror Committee for the ISO 20121 standard development process. Andrew is also in the final phase of his Master in Environmental Studies (MES), specializing in Sustainable Meeting and Event Management.
Emma Wellman, Sustainability Advisor, Earls Court & Olympia
Emma has 14 years of experience in the event and exhibition industry; 7 years with Spearhead Exhibitions as an organiser involved in sales, marketing, media and project management for a large international exhibition prior to joining EC&O Venues as an operational manager in early 2004.
When she started at Olympia, a large part of her role was managing the cleaning contract where she has introduced a waste recycling programme which started her interest and work on sustainability issues at the venues. She has since completed the IEMA environmental certificate, developed the Corporate Social Responsibility report, developed and run staff training programmes on Sustainability and developed environmental and sustainability policies.
Her work on sustainability at Earls Court and Olympia has resulted in 5 industry awards for sustainability for the venues.
Andrew Williams – Managing Director, Seventeen Events
Andrew Williams is a co-founder and director of Seventeen Events, a sustainable event management agency based in east London. Prior to co-founding Seventeen in 2005, Andrew spent the previous five years working for the Borders Books & Music chain, and living in Mexico and Central America. Andrew is a regular speaker on the subject of sustainability in events and has been voted one of the 50 most influential figures in the UK events industry.
Since its inception Seventeen has had a sustainable focus to its work and the company now organises a variety of high profile events every year including the Observer Ethical Awards. Andrew has been named a “London Leader” for 2011 and is planning a series of sustainable music events in the run up to the 2012 Olympics.