Environmental, Social & Governance Policy (ESG) Policy

KEY POINTS

• By agreeing to our Terms and Conditions you are required to understand our ESG Policy and work in accordance to it.
• This policy applies to companies, individuals or other bodies that work with Global Experience Specialists Limited, The Company’s Event Intelligence Limited, Spiro and associated Group Companies (collectively “the Company”)
• This policy outlines the collective approach towards environmental, social and governance issues and how they should be addressed and managed.
• Compliance in accordance with required regulations and company relevant ISO20121:2024 and ISO14001 Accreditations

Introduction

This Environmental Social and Governance (ESG) Policy formalises the Company’s commitment to supporting the principles of environmental and social sustainability and ensuring responsible governance behind our policies are robust.

The Company is committed to managing its activities to promote sustainable development, environmental sustainability, conserve and enhance our natural resources, prevent environmental pollution, and bring about continual improvement in our environmental performance. We also understand the impact and importance of social inclusion, accessibility and wellbeing and seek out opportunities to enhance these across the communities we work in.

The aim of this ESG Policy is to integrate a philosophy of environmental and social sustainability into all the organisation’s activities and to establish and promote sound environmental practices in our operations as well as those of our value chain.

Collectively we will achieve this by:

• Sharing our commitment to environmental and social sustainability across our value chain.
• Supporting the implementation of actions within our organisation that promote:
  • Strong responsible governance
  • Integrity across all social activities
  • Commitment to reducing our environmental impact
• Monitoring the progress of these actions.
• Establishing short, medium, and long-term sustainable development objectives.
• Complying with all legislation applicable to the Company.

Environmental sustainability statement

The earth’s environment is under severe stress from uncontrolled human activity, threatening the survival of our society and the performance of The Company’s mission.

The Company respects its relationship with the natural environment and ecosystems and acknowledges the adverse impacts that human activity can impose and takes actions to prevent degradation of those natural systems. We acknowledge the specific impacts of our business on the natural environment, and our responsibility as a good corporate citizen to ensure a natural environment that is sustainable.

The Company commits to the following principles and practices:

• Monitoring and managing our environmental performance and working towards targets set to reduce adverse impacts.
• Complying with all relevant international, national and local environmental policy, practices, regulations and legislation, and industry-specific best practice.
• Working towards specific United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and aligning long, medium and short-term objectives.
• Reducing the consumption of natural resources in daily operations, including water, paper and energy.
• Maximising the recycling of resources.
• Disposing of all waste appropriately, and minimising waste sent to non-recyclable disposal sites.
• Minimising pollution by taking steps to limit carbon emissions resulting from vehicle and air travel.
• Where possible, encouraging suppliers to meet the highest standards of environmental performance.
• Communicating this policy to all employees, contractors and other stakeholders, as well as making this policy available to the general public.
• Reporting on the Company’s environmental performance in both internal and external communications, where relevant.
• Reviewing this policy annually and measuring targets and performance as part of that review.

The natural environment and our assets

The Company commits to increasing opportunities for nature to thrive on the assets we own, lease or manage. This includes land, water and air which we have a financial interest in, own, lease, or otherwise manage.

Sustainable travel

We promote and support remote working and hybrid working and encourage the use of digital meetings wherever possible. We have ongoing incentives for staff to take public transport wherever possible plus support and encourage the use of electric and other ultra-low emissions vehicles.

Waste and recycling

The Company commits to keeping waste to a minimum by preventing, reusing, recycling or recovering waste wherever possible. We will ensure waste is sorted, stored and disposed of properly and in a sustainable manner in all of our locations.

Energy use

The use of electricity and gas is a key contributor to greenhouse gas emissions; however, our organisation cannot function without energy. Therefore, energy is one of the clearest and most important ways to reduce our overall emissions and is a key part of our commitment to reducing our carbon footprint.

Information technology and sustainability

We will work towards the use of certified sustainable PCs, laptops, monitors, mobile devices, network and server hardware. All equipment must be disposed of correctly through an approved e-waste recycling contractor. No IT equipment should be sent to landfill or thrown out.

Training and staff involvement

We will encourage all staff to undergo training on environmental sustainability and climate change. We will aim to raise awareness of environmental sustainability across our operations.

Sustainable procurement

We aspire to reduce our carbon footprint throughout our supply chain. We commit to the principles of buying locally, seasonally, and making a concerted effort in all our procurement decisions to reduce the distance travelled between source and destination.

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals

We are aligning our business to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The UN created the 17 SDGs in 2015 with the objective of setting universal goals that met the urgent environmental, political and economic challenges faced globally.

Whilst we recognise the importance of all 17 SDGs we have decided to focus on the following 5 that we feel best align to our goals and objectives.

We have aligned these goals with the three key components of ESG: Environment (SDGs 12 & 13), Social (SDGs 3 & 10) and Governance (SDG 8).

We are committed to take these goals into consideration when approaching our sustainability goals as a business.

Environmental – We align our environmental sustainability performance and goals with the SDGs 12 and 13

12. Responsible Consumption and Production – To ensure waste reduction across the Company and maintain and improve our sustainable waste management.

13. Climate Action – We are aiming to reduce our GHG emissions from all aspects of the business and we are doing this by integrating climate change measures into our strategies and planning, such as signing up to the 2050 Net Zero Carbon Events pledge.

Social – We align our social sustainability performance and goals with the SDGs 3 and 10.

3. Good Health and Well-Being – We are aligning our commitment to achieving social sustainability by ensuring good health and well-being for all employees.

10. Reduced Inequalities – We aim to reduce inequalities across the whole business in any way we can. As stated in our Always Honest policy, as a business we treat everyone with dignity and respect, and do not allow discrimination against employees. Additionally, we adhere to the gender pay gap difference, carry out an evaluation on equal pay analysis and have access available to D&I training.

Governance – We align our governance sustainability performance and goals with the SDG 8.

8. Decent Work and Economic Growth – We are aligning our governance sustainability goals to SDG 8, as The Company aims to create a strong and positive working environment, whilst also helping the business to grow.

Compliance

This Policy is in compliance with ISO20121:2024 Event sustainability Management System and ISO14001 Environmental Sustainability System.

The Company’s commitment to ESG is growing year on year and we are keen to ensure our supply chain can advance with us. We appreciate companies are at different stages so if there is any support we can help with please reach out to the team ESG@GES.com.

As a supplier you understand and agree to make every endeavour to align to this ESG Policy.

 

Revised December 2024