Originally published on The Drum on April 16, 2025
Author:
Tom Paston-Cooper, Sustainability Manager
As brands continue to champion sustainability and bake it further into their MO, why are experiential emissions quietly slipping under the radar? As legislation tightens and stakeholder voices grow louder, a significant opportunity to pull back the curtain lies ahead…
Experiential marketing plays a crucial role for many organizations in many industries. It has that je ne sais quoi that screens alone struggle to capture – the over-stimulation and whimsy some of us so sorely crave. At its best, the swaggering spectacle of experiential marketing is enough to soften even the most hardened stakeholder – a refreshingly human endeavour in a world of UI and QR.
But behind the curtain of razzmatazz and imagination lurks a heavy environmental burden. Travel, construction, logistics… it all adds up. Strangely, though, the substantial emissions from these activities can often vanish without a trace from corporate sustainability reports.
This is all the more surprising as the industry evolves and climate risk becomes harder to ignore. The reputational, regulatory, and business risks of failing to address environmental impact are simply too significant, while the stakes are only rising.
It’s exciting to see that for many organizations, environmental sustainability is now baked into overarching business strategy, with considerable resources allocated to initiatives and carbon disclosure. So, why the quiet burial for event emissions?
One reason behind this curious emission omission lies in how environmental reporting frameworks operate. The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), which was recently postponed by two years for some companies, demands detailed Scope 3 (ie, indirect emissions) reporting from large businesses that operate in the EU. ISSB S2 also mandates Scope 3 reporting, a reminder of the need for accurate supply chain disclosure.
However, these seemingly hardline directives give organizations space to determine what is ‘material’ to their operations, leading to a potential slew of skipped Scope 3 emissions. Despite detailed guidance provided by the European Financial Reporting Advisory Group (EFRAG), businesses retain the flexibility to determine which Scope 3 categories to include. This flexibility offers an effective and practical way of focusing efforts on the most impactful emission sources, but can allow certain emission hotspots to slip through the cracks.
What does this mean in practice? Well… Let’s say a manufacturing company hosts 150 large-scale, global experiences a year. Under CSRD reporting guidance, they must conduct a self-assessed double materiality assessment to identify key sustainability issues. The company does just that – but because the vast majority of their emissions come from manufacturing, the emissions from those 150 global experiences haven’t been deemed material in comparison, as they are seen to be less significant financially and operationally, even though they total potentially thousands of tonnes of CO2e.
To add to the confusion, event emissions are complex by nature. They span multiple reporting categories and sources, making them notoriously tricky to pin down. Then there’s the ‘double counting’ debate, where emissions may get logged multiple times across the supply chain (or not at all, as everyone politely looks the other way). Tricky business this sustainability stuff, eh? But maybe the answer lies in accountability and a scalable solution, not willful oversight.
The irony leaves a sour taste, given that experiential marketing is designed to reflect brand values, and sustainability is so often front and center in those very same values. As customers and shareholders grow savvier, so too do the concerns about greenwashing and hollow commitments.
Ultimately, the experiential sector stands at a crossroads. There’s a real opportunity to match the ambition of corporate environmental pledges and ensure the razzmatazz genuinely aligns with brand values. Sustainability and transparency bring proven brand value; it just takes a few bold players to build it into their experiential strategy. If they’re heavyweight enough, the rest won’t be far behind.
