PCMA and SANCBE Announce New Sustainability Conference for 2024

COPENHAGEN, DENMARK – PCMA and the Strategic Alliance of the National Convention Bureaux of Europe (SANCBE) announced a new sustainability conference to be hosted in conjunction with Convening EMEA 2024 (30 September – 2 October) in Barcelona, Spain. The news was shared during the closing session of Convening EMEA 2023 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Together, PCMA and SANCBE 24 will focus on exploring groundbreaking innovations and cutting-edge climate-friendly technologies to reimagine business events and create new business models.“Business events are an essential setting for solving complex issues,” said Sherrif Karamat, CAE, PCMA and CEMA President and CEO. “The sustainability conference will allow people to come together to ensure knowledge transfer, create networks, and provide platforms on which answers to the overarching questions of our time are developed.”

Among the challenges of our time, climate change is most urgent – and business events can play a major role in the transformative change that is now needed. From scientific conferences to political summits and trade shows: meetings and gatherings of all types are essential tools for humans to advance, collaborate and essential for our survival. The business events industry therefore has a unique opportunity and responsibility to contribute to the global efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

In addition, new technologies make an indispensable contribution to sustainable meetings and turn the task ahead of the meetings industry into a twin transformation of sustainability and digitalization. How are climate change stories entangled with the advancement of business events and technological solutions? Which transferrable innovations and strategic partnerships could revolutionize future meetings? Is the transition to net zero events based on circular economy globally possible?

SANCBE Co-Chairs Matthias Schultze, Managing Director, German Convention Bureau (GCB) and Eric Bakermans, Director Marketing Meetings & Conventions, Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions stated (NBTC) “The challenges of sustainability and the digital transformation are global in nature and can thus only be addressed through cooperation, common goals and frameworks, and a shared vision. In Europe, 29 countries are already working together within SANCBE to develop solutions for this twin transformation. Together with PCMA our new conference, initiated and hosted in Europe, will expand this movement to the global scale.”

Karamat stated “The consistently sustainable organization of events can only succeed in conjunction with technological solutions – and both those topics lie at the heart of PCMA’s work. We are therefore more than happy to join forces with SANCBE to unleash the full potential of our communities together and combine our strategic knowledge to co-create a sustainable future for business events.”

Full details, including conference name and date will be shared once available.