Sustainable events & what we’re doing about it

The ever-growing concern about the environment and climate change has accelerated the demand for conscious sustainable initiatives. The event industry itself is often very tailored and bespoke for a particular event’s needs in terms of production, which therefore makes for a ‘throw away culture’, frequently with single use items.

Here at More Production, we’re passionate about sustainability and over the years have been working on a series of actions within our day to day operations, event delivery and thereafter to ensure a more sustainable and ethical approach to our business that minimises our impact on our planet by reusing and repurposing where possible. We hope that each change we make, however big or small, will help our planet that bit more and minimise the amount of unnecessary waste and pollutants to help us along our way to producing zero waste events.

The nature of our company is to hire products, making our items accessible to the events & entertainment industry. This is sustainable in itself as reusing the same item for multiple purposes is one of the best ways to reduce waste from events. (Giving people the option to hire instead of buying one time use products that they will discard after the event, therefore preventing landfill). 

The majority of our products we design and manufacture in house are already made to be modular, with the thought process behind them that they can easily be adapted to make something bespoke to the clients events needs, but equally can be quickly adapted to suit another with very minimal component change. This also allows for replacement of damaged parts instead of the whole piece of furniture, or bespoke parts for the event.

For example, the majority of our seating will take our ‘cube seat pads’. These seat pads are fully interchangeable across the board of our furniture ranges. So that one seat pad can be used on either one of our rustic cube seats, or on our colours benches and so on.

All timber we use for our inhouse built products is either reclaimed or only FSC or PEFC certified. 

When it comes to printing materials, vinyl banners and foamex boards have been a traditional choice for event branding, primarily because it is cost effective, durable, and easy to use, however, they are often used solely for that one event and then thrown away. With a shift of priorities for companies pointing toward greater sustainability we are looking to alternative eco-friendly materials which have become much more obtainable.

We now suggest to our clients printable corrugated cardboard such as e-flute for event signage if it is suitable for use. Or for instances where larger banner prints are required, we would look to print on PVC free vinyl fabric such asKavalan.

We also make a conscious effort to ask printing companies if the inks and finishes they use are compliant with recycling requirements.

Occasionally we will attend events such as exhibitions or conferences where we ourselves require advertising materials. We consciously design the banners or stands to be generic, without particular event branding so that they can be re-used for future events we attend.

We are continuously designing and rethinking our products, always on the hunt for new ideas and products that we can utilise. We now have a new range of eco-friendly furniture, which is an amalgamation of our existing products with either biodegradable fabrics such as hessian, or fabrics that are made from recycled materials. The new Eco-Twist fabric made in the UK from 100% recycled plastic bottles has a crepe finish with plenty of colour options available. It is a great sustainable alternative to our leatherette fabric which is used to upholster seat pads and cube bases in our Colours Range. 

Our mission is to re-use and find another life for as many things as possible before replacing them to reduce the amount of waste that is recycled or sent to landfill, for example:-

Furniture –  any fit for use larger wooden sections from bespoke builds are repurposed into our rustic range cube seats and sofa sections.

Drapes – we try to add any fabric suitable from bespoke off the roll drape installations in venues to our premade drape stock so they can be washed and reused again. Any drape fabric that it is not suitable to do this with is either sold on or donated to charities or local schools.

Where possible, we are using reusable Velcro or reusable cable ties so staff no longer need to tie tight knots in the plastic bags to secure them, resulting in them being ripped open, making the bags non-re-usable. This not only reduces the amount of plastic bags needed to be bought but makes them reusable.

We also look to sell on or donate some items. We have various outlets as to where we often sell on items we deem are no longer suitable for our hire stock such as EBay. This means the products can still gain further life from others, contributing positively to the growing waste management concerns. 

We look to minimise waste as much as possible in every avenue we can, however, items we sadly cannot fit into any of the above considerations, at this stage will be disposed of. Here at More HQ we do have a waste solution in place for mixed recycled items such as your everyday plastics, metals and paper/ cardboard. We also have a waste solution for our timber;  the timber that cannot be reused, is turned into wooden pellets which will be reused for a variety of things.  

We have made it a priority to put sustainability right at the heart of our business. We try to make every conscious effort, right down to our operational purchasing. For instance, prioritising more EU Eco-label environmentally friendly cleaning products which avoid or minimise the use of chemicals and pollutants, such as using biodegradable cleaning sponges, right through to bamboo toilet roll.

 Our journey of progression to a more sustainable future of event production is still ongoing and we continue to learn about more ways we can reduce our negative impact on the environment. We believe events can be both memorable and environmentally conscious.

Take a look at our sustainability policy here.