Corporate Responsibility

Any business today has to balance the need to be profitable with an appropriate respect for sustainability, community and workplace - three of the corporate responsibility pillars.

UBM Live is primarily an exhibition business with shows in three different continents, with over 200,000 visitors, 6,000 customers and 900 suppliers. So the types of questions we ask ourselves on a daily basis are:-
 

• Sustainability: Can we reduce the amount of waste from our shows?
• The community: Can we help our teams to give back to our communities?
• The workplace: Can we ensure our employees are given every opportunity to develop themselves in a safe and positive working environment?

 

Sustainability

"Inspires, engages, supports and challenges businesses to take action on climate change and other environmental issues." From Business in the Community.

 

• Our greatest CR achievement in 2009 was that UBM Live became the first major event organiser to become self accredited to BS8901. We are now on the BS8901 register. According to the website Sustainable Event Certification: “BS8901 is a management system standard designed to help organisations in the events industry improve the sustainability of their event related activities, products and services.” We are aiming to become third party accredited by the end of 2010.
• UBM Live doubled the amount of exhibition waste it has recycled over the past year, with 30 tonnes in 2009 up from 17 tonnes in 2008 (for those exhibitions of which we have three years of records). The percentage of waste recycled also grew from 7% in 2008 to 17% in 2009.
• IFSEC, our exhibition for the security market, has trialled an environmental initiative by one of its contractors to decrease the waste produced by the exhibition industry each year.
• The graphics division of Melville Exhibition & Event Services now removes all banners at the close of events and takes obsolete items to its recycling facility. Banners are ground up, melted down and turned into new raw material plastics used for the manufacture of ties and straps for young trees, waste bins and more.
• All intercontinental travel by the board is offset against Woodland Carbon, the scheme created by the Woodland Trust where woodland is planted to create the largest natural carbon capture and storage project in the UK.

Community

"Address key social issues in education, employability and economic renewal." From Business in the Community.

 

We’ve got many skills at UBM Live – we run events, generate revenue, launch websites. Can we use our skills to help people in the wider community?

We officially support four main charities – The Woodland Trust, The Lord’s Taverner’s, SOS Children’s Villages and Cancer Research. These have been chosen for meeting our criteria – health, children, and sustainability.

But the company encourages all its employees to work with or for charities in both the UK and overseas. Some of the activities of which we are most proud include:

• Raising just under £60,000 at events (such as black tie dinners for industry awards).
• Providing just over £30,000 worth of free stand space to charities at our exhibitions. Beneficiaries included The Lord’s Taverner’s, Meetings Industry Meeting Needs, Sparks and Furnishing Trades Benevolent Association (FTBA). We also offered 80% discount on stand space at Leisure Industry Week to 10 sports organisations such as British Cycling, British Judo and Badminton England.
• Raising over £260 to sponsor a child for a year at SOS Children’s Villages, through a charitable donation for each sale at our monthly Live Stock bring-and-buy sale and a Santa’s Grotto at Christmas.
• We were presented with the Corporate Supporter of the Year Award by the Furnishing Trades Benevolent Association, an occupational charity providing financial or medical assistance to those currently or previously employed in the UK Furnishing Industry. The award recognises the outstanding services given by UBM Live in support of the industry’s only dedicated charity. The company and its portfolio of interiors events support the FTBA by the way of donations raised during Interiors Birmingham, the interiors event in the UK, as well as its fundraising activities and continuous contributions from the company’s senior executives.

Workplace

"Driving the agenda on responsible business practices in the marketplace." From Business in the Community.

 

We encourage our staff to learn from their peers, contribute to our corporate responsibility goals and socialise with colleagues.

• All board members run regular quarterly masterclasses for colleagues. The subjects covered, such as finanical management, and globalising brands, are aligned to our goals for growth but also help colleagues get up to speed on subjects outside their core activity
• We also run regular showcases where different parts of the company present their work and ideas to colleagues. The marketers, for example, showed off the ingenuity of our marekting material in a Creative Day. And the operations team explained the complexity and their skills in bringing our exhibitions to life on site with an Ops Morning
• We run regular bring-and-buy sales where colleagues can make money for themselves by selling old CDs or handbags. Fifteen percent of all money generated is donated to one of our four charities
• Every week one out of our 200-odd colleagues answers a range of questions on our internal internet. Live Talking, as it is called, encourages colleagues to express their diversity within a safe environment
• We run regular monthly awards for individuals in sales, editorial and marketing.