What a Senior Manager of Sustainability at Global Events Company Wishes They Had Known Before Entering Sustainability
Karen, a Senior Manager of Sustainability at a Global Events Company, reveals a key difference between event operations and sustainability work: the latter requires "relying on other people to dictate your deadlines," involves constant adaptation to changing regulations, and offers less frequent "shiny wins" compared to the immediate gratification of event-based tasks. This shift necessitates a different pace and approach to project management than the "task list" mentality prevalent in event operations.
Project Management, Teamwork, Resilience, Problem-Solving, Overcoming Challenges
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
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Traits
Karen Young
Senior Manager of Sustainability
Global Events Company
Texas State University
n/a
Film, Media Arts, Visual Arts
Consulting & Related Professional Services
Climate, Environment and Sustainability
Honors Student, Worked 20+ Hours in School
Video Highlights
1. The broad nature of sustainability in the events industry means that professionals in this field must be comfortable collaborating across departments and trusting others to meet deadlines.
2. Sustainability projects rarely follow a linear path, with solutions often needing to be adapted due to changing regulations or unexpected circumstances.
3. The pace of work in sustainable event planning differs from traditional event planning, with less frequent and less predictable "shiny wins" compared to event-driven deadlines
Transcript
What have you learned about this role that you wish someone had told you before entering the industry?
Sustainability, I'll separate that from events. There's a lot about events that you can't know in advance until you're in it, because that's just the beast.
But sustainability, I think now understanding how it really crosses and spans across all types of departments and roles and people, you really have to be okay relying on other people to dictate your deadlines and your projects. So you have to believe people are being transparent with you. You have to believe that they have your best interest and the company's best interest in mind.
It's really hard to finish a project and move on. That's just kind of not this world. You may have a solution one day and then a regulation changes your solution, and you have to start all over. So it's not checking off a to-do list. My event operations brain is very much a task list. I get something done and I move on quickly.
Sustainability is a very different pace. It's not slower, because as I mentioned before, it's hurry up to wait. But it's a very different pace. And working year after year with a goal, a deadline of an event, and once that event passes, you just start over.
Sustainability for events in our role for corporate sustainability, we are working with all events. So we aren't driven by event deadlines; we're driven by our own internal deadlines. I don't have that constant need for clarity or success or the shiny wins. They don't come as often, and they don't come at a predictable time.
So those are all, I guess, surprises about sustainability. With the mask that I'm still in the event world, I still get pieces of it. It's just a very different final product than I'm used to.