“Carbon reporting needs a shake up” says Ben Quarrell of Sustainability Simplified.
According to Sustainability Simplified, measuring emissions is supposed to help people reduce, but in reality, the biggest barrier isn’t the ambition to do the right thing, it’s time. Rather than focusing on ways to reduce the impact of events, teams are tied up with data admin – collecting, moving and reformatting it across multiple tools.
Rather than another one-size-fits-all tool, the simplified system is customised to each agency’s workflows, built into their existing internal project plans, budget trackers or accounting systems, to remove the data duplication altogether.
The impact is significant: what previously took days per event can now be completed almost automatically, with reports generated at the click of a button, helping teams focus on what matters.
It needed to be specifically designed for the events industry, to reflect the unique dual reporting challenge agencies face: delivering event-level carbon reports for clients, while also tracking their own annual business operations footprint for net-zero goals.
This comes at a time of growing pressure for the industry. As clients push towards 2030 climate targets and respond to tightening EU regulations, measuring Scope 3 emissions — including the events they commission — has become essential, with agencies often responsible for delivering that data. More clients request their suppliers be “net-zero aligned” which means now is the time for businesses to measure their complete footprint too.
One agency already benefiting is Positive Experience. “Before working with Sustainability Simplified, calculating our carbon footprint felt almost insurmountable,” said Victoria Robinson from Positive Experience. “Now we can see the full picture for every event and our wider operations quickly and accurately — it’s no longer a huge task.”
Because the system works within existing workflows rather than introducing new platforms, it is also more cost-effective. A business-operations calculator can cost less than an annual subscription to many online tools, while a full company solution covering both operations and events typically pays for itself through time savings alone.
For agencies already using event calculators, the system can provide business operations reporting only, or combine everything into one streamlined process. With just a couple of hours per month 100% of business emissions are measured throughout the year, keeping it simple, quick and easy.
Sustainability Simplified systems are also used by Goose, Ecoform, Brands at Work and MSL Global, helping integrate emissions tracking into their everyday workflows without the headache.
Sustainability Simplified is now opening up its integrated carbon tracking system to new event businesses, looking to turn their net-zero ambition into measurable action, without their teams becoming bogged down with extra admin.
