In an exclusive piece for MediaBrief, Mudit Jain, founder of Happy & Hungry – The Event Co., examines the business case for sustainability in events and exhibitions. He writes about the cost of single-use production, the potential for reusable assets and the role of measurement in improving future events. Read on.
A corporate event comes alive for a day. An exhibition stall may stand for three or four. A brand activation could last a weekend. And then? The lights come down. The branding is removed. The structures are dismantled. The audience moves on. And somewhere between the applause and the next brief, a surprising amount of material, money and effort can become waste.
That is the uncomfortable contradiction of our industry. We create experiences designed to be remembered, using an ecosystem that has traditionally been highly temporary.
For years, sustainability in events and exhibitions has largely been discussed as an environmental responsibility. Use less plastic. Reduce printing. Segregate waste. Choose better materials. Offset emissions.
All important.
But for marketers and business leaders, there is another question worth asking: What if sustainability could actually deliver a better return on the event budget?
Not just a lower carbon footprint. A better brand outcome. That is where the conversation becomes interesting.
The cost of creating something only once
Consider an exhibition. A brand may participate in several exhibitions across different cities during a year. Traditionally, a large proportion of each stall is fabricated for a particular show, dismantled after a few days and then recreated for another exhibition because the size, layout or design has changed.
Or consider a corporate event. Stage sets, branding, entrance structures, installations, printed communication and décor may be created specifically for one evening.
There will always be elements that need to be customised. That is part of experiential marketing.
But does everything need to start from zero every time?
According to sustainability body ISLA’s 2026 analysis of more than 6,400 material entries across 789 events, 84% of measured event materials were virgin materials and 42% of build materials were used only once. When audience and staff travel were excluded, materials represented 31% of an event’s controllable carbon footprint.
The same analysis estimated that the recorded single-use materials carried disposal costs approaching half a million pounds.
There is something fascinating about that equation. We spend money to create it. We spend money to move it. We spend money to install it. And sometimes, we spend money to dispose of it.
Sustainability asks whether some of that cycle can be redesigned.
And suddenly, going green starts looking less like an environmental expense and more like operational efficiency.
What if the second event starts with the first?
This is where circular thinking can change the economics of events and exhibitions. An exhibition structure designed intelligently can be modular enough to adapt to another stall size. Selected furniture, lighting, AV equipment and structural components can be reused. Fabric graphics can replace certain single-use applications. Digital displays can reduce repeatedly produced communication material.
For corporate events, reusable stage elements, rental-led décor, digital communication, smarter production planning and locally sourced materials can reduce unnecessary production without reducing the scale of the experience.
The principle is not to make the event smaller. It is to make the waste smaller. And that distinction matters.
Because when money is not repeatedly spent on elements that disappear after a few hours or days, it can be redirected towards what audiences actually remember: content, entertainment, technology, hospitality and engagement.
For a marketer, that is where sustainability starts delivering a very different kind of ROI.
Your event is your brand in 3D
There is also a larger brand question. Companies today communicate extensively about ESG, responsible business, climate commitments and sustainability.
But an event or exhibition is where those promises become physical. A sustainability report may be read by a few thousand people.
At an exhibition, thousands of people can literally walk into your brand. They see what you have built. They interact with your team. They experience your technology. They notice your hospitality. And increasingly, they notice the choices behind the experience. This creates an opportunity far more powerful than putting a green leaf on the backdrop.
Imagine an exhibition stall where visitors can discover how much of the structure has been reused. Or a corporate event where a live dashboard communicates waste reduction, energy consumption or the event’s measured carbon footprint. Imagine an interactive installation where sustainability data becomes part of the experience rather than another paragraph in an ESG presentation.
At that point, sustainability becomes more than compliance. It becomes storytelling. And storytelling is something our industry understands very well.
Does the audience really care?
The data suggests that sustainability can influence the experience itself. A 2026 study published in the Social Responsibility Journal, involving 951 festival participants, found that measures including reusable cups and selective waste collection significantly enhanced attendee satisfaction.
Research involving 444 event participants published in the Asia Pacific Journal of Tourism Research also found that technology-led sustainability values positively influenced perceptions of a green event image. Sustainable event loyalty was associated with outcomes including positive word of mouth, willingness to pay more and revisit intention.
For brands, that changes how ROI should be viewed. The return from a sustainable event or exhibition does not necessarily arrive as a single number. It may appear in reduced material consumption. It may appear through reuse across multiple exhibitions. It may emerge from better attendee engagement. It may strengthen brand perception. It may create content worth sharing. And increasingly, it can provide measurable sustainability data that organisations can carry into their ESG reporting.
The return is both financial and reputational.
The greenest event is not the one with the most green signage
There is, however, a danger.
Sustainability is becoming fashionable. And whenever something becomes fashionable, there is a temptation to make it visible before making it real.
Removing plastic bottles does not automatically make an event sustainable. Putting plants around an exhibition stall does not make the stall sustainable. And offsetting emissions cannot become permission to ignore reduction.
That is where measurement becomes critical.
ISLA’s Temperature Check Europe 2025, based on almost 1,000 measured events, found audience travel responsible for 39% of recorded emissions. Production transportation contributed 14%, build production 12%, energy 8% and catering 7%.
It demonstrates something important: the carbon story of an event is much bigger than the material visible to an attendee.
You cannot improve what you have never measured. This thinking is also what led us at Happy & Hungry to develop ROOT: Review, Optimize, Offset and Transform.
The order is intentional.
Review the footprint. Optimize wherever emissions and waste can genuinely be reduced. Offset the residual impact responsibly. Then transform the next event using what the data has taught you.
Because sustainability should not be about making an event look green. It should be about making the event measurably better.
From one event to an Intelligence System
Perhaps the most exciting ROI of sustainability is something the industry has barely begun to use: data. Imagine a company participating in 20 exhibitions and organising 15 corporate events every year.
What if every one of those experiences generated comparable information on materials, transportation, energy, waste and reuse?
Within a year, the company would begin understanding which materials repeatedly create waste, which structures can travel across exhibitions, which cities require higher logistics, which venues perform better, which suppliers create efficiencies and which interventions genuinely reduce cost and carbon.
The first event creates an experience. The twentieth creates intelligence. And that intelligence can make the twenty-first event better.
That is when sustainability stops being a campaign and starts becoming an operating system.
Can Sustainability still deliver the ‘Wow’?
Absolutely. In fact, this may be the most exciting creative challenge facing our industry.
The future should not be about choosing between a spectacular experience and a sustainable one. It should be about asking better questions.
Can an exhibition stall be designed for its next three lives rather than only its next three days? Can technology replace unnecessary material while increasing engagement? Can sustainability data itself become an interactive experience? Can we reduce waste without reducing imagination? And most importantly: Can we make sustainability itself spectacular?
If we can, the ROI of going green becomes much easier to understand.
Because when an event or exhibition uses fewer disposable materials, creates reusable assets, reduces inefficiencies, produces measurable environmental data, strengthens brand credibility and still makes the audience stop, engage, photograph, share and remember, sustainability is no longer an additional cost.
It is simply better business.
Mudit Jain is an experiential marketing professional with more than a decade of experience across advertising, media sales, brand partnerships and on-ground marketing. He is the founder of Happy & Hungry – The Event Co., which works across experiential marketing, exhibitions, corporate events and brand activations.
Jain began his career at Bennett Coleman & Co. Ltd., publisher of The Times of India, where he worked on media sales, advertising solutions and brand partnerships. He later worked at Amagi before founding Happy & Hungry in 2017. The company combines design, sustainability and technology in its approach to brand experiences.
