Major event clients such as the London 2012 Organising Committee and the Greater London Authority are already referring to BS 8901 in their tenders, and corporate clients are expected to follow suit as they work to ensure their own sustainability policies are being implemented throughout their organisations.
Consequently, this new standard will soon become a minimum requirement to do business in the events industry, and like risk management and health and safety before, it will eventually become part of the way the event industry operates.
At the end of 2008, PLASA launched the first wave of its BS 8901 Programme - an initiative intended to give PLASA Members a head start on the rest of the industry. Delivered in partnership with the Sustainable Events Group, the programme takes Members through the development and implementation of an event management system that meets the requirements of BS 8901.
The first programme is now successfully underway and such has been the interest from the industry, that PLASA is now running a second wave of workshops, commencing in March 2009.
Two weeks prior to the second phase of workshops, PLASA is running a half-day introductory seminar providing attendees with an overview of the new standard. Companies who sign up for this half-day workshop, will be able to determine whether BS 8901 is relevant to their business, understand how to achieve compliance and how other organisations have implemented and benefited from the standard.
The overview seminar will take place on Thursday 26 February at the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health in London and will be delivered by experts who were directly involved in the development of the standard and who are currently working to bring around improvements to the standard. The seminar will be followed by an extended Q&A session to enable attendees to ask specific questions.
For further details on the second BS 8901 Programme or the half-day introductory session, contact PLASA on +44 (0)1323 524120 or e-mail: feedback@plasa.org.
Full details on the new standard can be found at the website address below:
(Lee Baldock)
