GO ROGUE: A Supplier Diversity Mandate for Events Industry Professionals
In Spring of 2021, the Society for Sustainable Events (SFSE) approached me about a Leadership Series. The central tenant of the program was the Circular Economy; the three topics: Carbon, Consumption, Supply Chain. When asked if I would lead the Supply Chain panel and cohort, I immediately replied “yes!” Our focus: increasing spend with disadvantaged businesses. This also falls under the concepts of supplier diversity and buying local, topics near and dear to my heart. In fact, the core framework in this paper comes from my doctoral research, in which I studied barriers faced by mission-driven food startups.
After a panel of experts presented the foundations of supplier diversity, we held a series of four cohort conversations. A variety of planners and suppliers joined in and shared their experiences and challenges. Their desire, like many I encounter in events sustainability, is to drive real change. There is an “enough is a enough” mentality rippling through our midst. We have spent years pushing for change and we are impatient and unsatisfied with the lack of results. This restlessness and urgency is what lead to our mandate to GO ROGUE!
This is a call to top executives and large event organizers who have the power to drive change throughout the events ecosystem. We eagerly await your response and action! At the same time, we assume that most of you reading this are not in positions of great power and your only and best option to drive change is to…
GO ROGUE!
The result of our efforts is a paper you can download here. It includes:
A brief overview of the systemic challenges disadvantaged businesses face (and why we call them that)
A framework called the 4 Cs which calls out costs, contracts, capacity, and chaos as key categories of challenges and opportunities.
The challenges from a buyer’s perspective.
The challenges from a seller’s perspective (the disadvantaged business).
Opportunities for organizations to foster equity!
