Can Events Be a Force for Good? Create Social Impact

Can events be a force for good?

Yes, and the best ones already are. Every event is a moment when hundreds or thousands of people choose to show up in the same place, at the same time, for the same reason. That is an extraordinary amount of energy, talent and goodwill in one room.

The most forward-thinking organisers now design every stage of an event so that energy leaves something good behind: from where they hold it, to how people travel, to what gets built on the show floor and what goes back to the host community. As isla founder Anna Abdelnoor puts it, live events "can play a positive role in the climate crisis" (isla).

In this guide: the real scale of the events industry's impact, the five stages of a mindful event, and how IMEX Frankfurt is putting this into practice, including a community activation where attendees assembled 600 hygiene kits in three days for a local charity.

The real impact events have on people and places

Business events are one of the largest gatherings of people on the planet. The Events Industry Council's 2026 Global Economic Significance of Business Events study, produced with Oxford Economics, measured their scale in 2025:

Sources: PCMA, TSNN.

Those numbers are the reason events matter. Those participants create demand for travel, accommodation, food and local services, and meet people they would not otherwise meet. That reach is what makes events so powerful, and it is why how an event is designed makes such a difference to the places that host it.

The mindful event lifecycle: five stages

A mindful event is planned as a whole, not as a list of separate decisions. The positive impact starts months before the doors open and continues after the last attendee leaves.

1. 1Before: choose a location and venue that people can reach easily by public transport.
2. 2Registration: ask attendees how and where they are travelling from.
3. 3Build: use reusable stands and materials on the show floor.
4. 4During: give attendees a simple way to give back to the host community.
5. 5After: measure what happened and report it clearly.

Each stage is set out below, with practical actions and an example of how IMEX approaches it.

The most influential decision happens before anyone registers: where the event takes place. A well-connected city and venue makes it easy for attendees to travel well, and that shapes everything that follows.

The industry's Net Zero Carbon Events framework encourages planners to base destination and venue choices on minimising attendee travel. Its travel guidance also suggests asking destinations about their own sustainability plans and public transport infrastructure before you commit.

• Shortlist venues close to main railway stations and public transport links (RX).
• Ask each destination whether it has its own sustainability or decarbonisation plan.
• Consider co-locating with complementary events so attendees make one journey instead of two.
• Share public transport and rail routes on your event website from day one.

You cannot improve what you do not know. The simplest way to understand your event's real reach is to ask attendees how and where they are travelling from when they register.

isla's event measurement platform, TRACE, recommends collecting travel and accommodation details at registration. If not everyone answers, TRACE can extrapolate from the responses you do get, so a good sample still gives you a useful picture.

• Add two questions to your registration form: where are you travelling from, and how?
• Start measuring early in planning, not after the event (isla).
• Use the answers to plan shuttles, rail partnerships or local hotel blocks for next year.

The show floor is where an event becomes visible, and where some of the biggest improvements are now happening. The industry is moving from single-use builds to reusable exhibition stands.

The Better Stands framework, hosted by Net Zero Carbon Events, rates stands Bronze, Silver or Gold on how much of each stand is reusable or recyclable. By June 2025, it had been used at more than 400 events in over 37 countries, with more than 50,000 stands assessed during its development stage (Meeting Spotlight).

• Share the Better Stands criteria with exhibitors and contractors at the point of booking.
• Recognise exhibitors who achieve Silver or Gold in your show guide or awards.
• Apply the same thinking to signage, giveaways and kit contents: choose items that are useful, durable or responsibly sourced. See how one simple supply chain change shaped CTW Events' hygiene kits.

This is where an event's energy turns into something people can hold. A hands-on giving-back activation lets attendees spend a few minutes between sessions making something useful for a local charity, and it gives them a meaningful break between sessions.

The strongest activations share four features:

Case study

IMEX Frankfurt 2026 Hygiene Kit Build

Across three days at IMEX Frankfurt 2026, attendees from across the global events industry assembled 600 hygiene kits for Bahnhofsmission Frankfurt, a support service at Frankfurt Central Station. It was the second year running that CTW Events hosted the build at the show.

Attendees dropped in between meetings and education sessions to pack kits containing a bamboo toothbrush, dental tablets, shower gel and shampoo. Every kit was donated directly to Bahnhofsmission Frankfurt, which offers immediate, practical help to travellers in crisis, families and people experiencing homelessness. Read the full IMEX Frankfurt 2026 case study.

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"Thank you again for the wonderful donations! Hygiene articles are always in high demand. The shower gel and shampoo miniatures are especially useful as many of our guests regularly have to carry their belongings."

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"The Hygiene Kit Build enriched our attendees' experience at the show, enabling them to give back to our host city of Frankfurt and enjoy a creative break in between their meetings. It's also a great example of a community-led activation which planners can bring to their own events."

More examples from the UK and Europe

The same approach works at every scale, from a hotel event in London to a conference in Vienna.

Giving back can also reach far beyond the host city. Between January and May 2025, LifeLine Ukraine received 6,870 hygiene kits through People for People and distributed 5,870 of them, alongside 2,672 other essential items. For the bigger picture, see CTW Events' 2025 Impact Report.

The final stage turns good intentions into proof. Measuring and reporting your event's impact shows stakeholders what worked, and gives you a baseline to improve on next year.

isla's Measuring Your Event Impact training breaks this into three questions: what to measure (and where your boundaries sit), how to measure it, and how to report and use the data.

• Combine your travel, venue and build data into one post-event report.
• Report giving-back outputs as facts: what was made, which partner received it and when.
• Share the results with attendees, exhibitors and your host city, and set next year's goals.

CTW Events case studies, such as IMEX Frankfurt 2026 and People for People in Ukraine, record what attendees made and where it went, so organisers can include it in their own reporting.

IMEX: an organiser thinking about the whole event

What makes IMEX stand out is not one initiative but how they connect. In April 2026, IMEX published its first sustainability strategy, In the moment, built with isla and centred on people and enriching experiences (IMEX press release). Here is how its approach maps to each stage.

The lesson for other organisers: a mindful event is built from many small, connected decisions, and giving back to the host city sits naturally alongside the rest.

Frequently asked questions