Circular economy & the power of nature
As Vice President of Sustainability at Esteé Lauder, a global company with ambitious environmental targets, Al Iannuzzi, is perfectly placed to deliver the keynote: Sustainability, A Business Imperative. Participants can then put their questions to Al Iannuzzi in a smaller, more informal setting in a ‘Meet the speaker’ session which follows.
IMEX welcomes the return of wilderness explorer Daniel Fox (a former PlanetIMEX speaker) who, together with Christine Duffy, President of Carnival Cruise Line, will share Lessons in building back better. This small, roundtable promises to deliver open, honest conversation and bold, nature-focused ideas. Celebrated for his intimate photographs of nature, Daniel then delivers a highly visual, poetic session showing Nature’s Lessons on Perspective Taking.
In Sustainability Failed: Circularity Will Build the Events Industry We Need, Paul Salinger, former Vice President of Marketing for Oracle and Past President of the GMIC, along with Chance Thompson, sustainability consultant and Co-Founder of VIRIDESCENT, powerfully state the urgent need to move away from a ‘take-make-waste’ model towards circular, regenerative events. Together they will deliver a rallying cry for event professionals to rethink their approach and share practical advice on how to incorporate a circular event economy into the supply chain.
Four experts combining decades of experience and fresh perspectives come together to share their hopes and predictions for the future of events. Guy Bigwood, Managing Director of the Global Destination Sustainability Movement; Janet Sperstad, Faculty Director at Madison College; Derrick M. Johnson, Chief Diversity Officer & Director of Event Strategy at Talley Management Group; and Anna Abdelnoor, Co-Founder & CEO of isla are all part of a panel session, Unpacking a “better” future for the events industry.
‘Creating a new future for our industry’
Carina Bauer, CEO of the IMEX Group, explains: “The world and the global events industry came to a hard stop during the pandemic. As we paused, many habits, choices and ’norms’ were stripped away. Now we all have the chance to choose what we put back in. Under the theme ‘building back better’, our June 9 Buzz Day brings together sustainability experts from around the world to deliver community-led content with the aim of creating a new future for our industry.”