Lindsay Neyjahr, Client Experience Director at Identity, explores why sustainability must be embedded as standard in events and brand experiences, and why meaningful measurement is essential to turning good intentions into real impact.
We talk a lot about sustainability in our industry. It’s in our strategies, our tenders, our commitments. And yet, too often, it only emerges later in the process. If we’re serious about reducing our environmental impact, sustainability must be embedded from day one. And that starts with measurement.
When a brief arrives, the conversation typically centres on reach, engagement, and memorability. These matter. But if environmental impact isn’t part of that initial success criteria it will inevitably become an afterthought. A compromise made late in the process when budgets are tight and timelines are locked.
Sustainability only becomes real when it’s measured alongside everything else that defines success.
Designing with measurement in mind
When measurement is built in from the outset, it changes the creative process in subtle but important ways. We stop making assumptions and start making informed decisions. Materials, suppliers, travel, energy use, waste and content all become elements we can interrogate, track and improve.
This doesn’t limit creativity. It sharpens it. When you understand the real impact of your decisions, you’re forced to be more intentional. You design smarter, not bigger. You focus on what truly adds value to the experience, rather than what simply looks impressive on paper.
Measurement also gives us a shared language. It allows creative, production and client teams to align around facts rather than instincts. It turns sustainability from a vague aspiration into a practical design tool.
Why “standard” matters
The problem with treating sustainability as a specialist workstream is that it suggests it’s optional – something you opt into if time or budget allows. But the reality is, every event has an impact whether we measure it or not. Choosing not to measure is still a choice; it just means we’re operating blind.
When sustainability is embedded as standard, it becomes best practice – automatically part of every brief/budget/success metric. It sits alongside audience experience, brand outcomes and delivery excellence, not in competition with them. The question shifts from “Can we afford to do this sustainably?” to “Why wouldn’t we design sustainability from the start?”
Evidence over good intentions
Clients are increasingly asking the same thing: not just good intentions, but evidence. They want to stand behind their experiences with confidence, knowing they can explain not just what they created, but how responsibly they did it. Measurement provides that credibility.
The experiences that stand the test of time are those designed with care, for the audience, for the brand, and for the wider world they exist in. When we measure what matters, sustainability stops being a constraint and becomes part of the craft.
When you’re shaping your next event or experience, don’t treat sustainability as a separate conversation. Build it in from the beginning. Decide what you’ll measure, and why. Because what gets measured gets better, and that’s how sustainable experiences become the norm, not the exception.
