Syndication 
Approaching conversations with others about the environment with a sense of empathy is critical for integrating green initiatives into your events.
According to a new Exhibitions & Conferences Alliance (ECA) statement, the latest round of proposed tariffs will “increase costs for business and professional event organizers, exhibitors, and attendees alike.”When Convene spoke in December with Tommy Goodwin, vice president of Exhibitions & Conferences Alliance (ECA), tariffs imposed on U.S. trading partners didn’t top the list of concerns he anticipated the business events industry would face in the new U.S. administration. And in fact, a month later, a Jan. 22 Reuters article noted that Trump’s plan to impose higher tariffs on imported goods to help pay for tax cuts, while “an unprecedented shift,” was “likely to face opposition from many of his fellow Republicans in Congress.”
But that was then. On April 2, Trump announced his long-promised “reciprocal” tariffs, declaring a 10-percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, as well as higher rates for dozens of countries that have trade surpluses with the U.S.
On April 4, ECA issued a statement expressing the “significant concern within the U.S. business and professional events industry” the tariffs spark. “These tariffs will increase costs for business and professional event organizers, exhibitors, and attendees alike,” Goodwin said in the press release. “Moreover, these tariffs will particularly harm small businesses,
When I connected with Marley Finnegan, founder of event consultancy Purpose Sustainability Strategy and Purpose Net Zero, she sent me a list of possible topics we could cover for our interview. I settled on climate psychology — how people think, feel, and behave in relation to the climate crisis.
Marley Finnegan, founder, Purpose Sustainability Strategy and Purpose Net Zero
It’s something that Finnegan, a panelist for the upcoming May 9 PCMA Event Leadership Institute (ELI) webinar “Sustainable Events in Action: Practical Strategies for Impactful Planning,” said she has come to realize is foundational to any conversation in the business events industry around sustainability. That was made apparent to her when she was joined in a panel discussion by climate psychologist Renee Lertzman, Ph.D. The two, along with Alyah Kanso, sustainability manager for the Golden State Warriors, spoke at a session in January in San Francisco hosted by the Society for Sustainable Events. On stage, Finnegan told Convene, “we all talked deeply about how climate grief and climate anxiety are showing up for us and the work that we do.”
What Lertzman shared with the audience, Finnegan said, was also a learning experience for her. “I have this urgency within me” about the climate crisis, she said, “that I want to see other people mirroring.” That has led Finnegan to feel frustrated, she said, when it’s not reciprocated. Listening to Lertzman, who talked about approaching conversations with others about the environment with a sense of empathy, made her realize, “wow, this is actually so deeply psychological.”
According to Lertzman’s website, we need to be “attuning to the very real anxieties, ambivalence, and aspirations many of us are experiencing, the ‘double binds’ that can leave many feeling stalled out and paralyzed, and what to do about it.” On another page on her website, Lertzman shares more about the three As: anxiety — what is this world coming to; ambivalence — I want to fly and travel the world; and aspiration — I want to be part of the solution, not contribute to the problem. “I realized that instead of focusing on whether people care or not, or how to ‘get people onboard,’ we have to start first with acknowledging and paying close attention to these Three As,” she writes. “These are a code, a guide, and a filter to keep us from falling into mind traps of ‘do you care or not.’ Or, ‘are you motivated or not.’”
Finnegan also spoke another resource that has helped her be attuned to other’s feelings about the environment: the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication, whose first rule of effective communication is to “‘know thy audience.’ “Climate change public engagement efforts must start with the fundamental recognition that people are different and have different psychological, cultural, and political reasons for acting — or not acting — to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” according to its website. Research conducted by this Yale School of the Environment program identified “Global Warming’s Six Americas” — alarmed, concerned, cautious, disengaged, doubtful, and dismissive.
The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication has identified global warming’s “six Americas.” Artwork by Michael Sloan
Having an Impact
“I think a lot of people think, you know, I’m just one person,” Finnegan said. “It’s just one event. How is this really going to make a difference? And what I think climate scientists are really trying to get across, and what I try to get across is that, literally, every second of every day is our best opportunity to mitigate the worst in climate repercussions. Like everything we do right now is either working toward a better, more resilient future or adding to the problem.”
So far, the business events industry, she said, has been more reactionary than proactive. “We need to be leaders of this change. As an industry, if we are going to wait for someone to tell us that we have to do it differently, that’s going to be too late.”
When asked whether she thinks the current administration’s moves to step away from global climate action will make it easier to be apathetic about sustainable events, Finnegan said she sees just the opposite happening. “I’m seeing an accelerating unification around the understanding that this is our planet. This is where we live. It’s like there is a call to action for community — how we support our neighbors, how we support our food sovereignty and where we get our food, how we support our farmers, the land, and really, how we support ourselves and our own well-being.”
“The world, the environment, the Earth is speaking, and she is speaking louder than any media could,” she said. “I’m seeing this energy and just this feeling of momentum.”
Michelle Russell is editor in chief of Convene.
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