Creating a Sustainability Guide: Fastfood & Café & Restaurant Expo Helsinki
Kyllönen, Anni (2023)
2023
All rights reserved. This publication is copyrighted. You may download, display and print it for Your own personal use. Commercial use is prohibited.
Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2023060116976
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2023060116976
Tiivistelmä
Every other year in March, Fastfood & Café & Restaurant Expo takes place in Messukeskus, Helsinki. It is one of the biggest and most popular professional events in the restaurant industry, both in Finland and the Nordics. Fastfood & Café & Restaurant Expo is organised in 4 other cities across the Nordics as well: Tampere, Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö. Easyfairs is the organizing company of the fair. The author previously did their internship at Easyfairs.
Easyfairs makes a big effort to become a more sustainable event organizer, and they have set many tangible measures to reach their goals. One of these goals is to educate exhibitors on how to be more sustainable. This thesis directly answers to their need by creating a sustainability guide for exhibitors.
The theoretical framework is based on literature research the author conducted. First, theory around sustainability and its different aspects is explained. The thesis includes background about the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals as well as Corporate Social Respon-sibility and ESG. Event Management and sustainability within the events industry are also discussed in the theoretical framework.
The purpose of this thesis is to create a sustainability guide that can be shared with exhibitors. The sustainability guide will include information about how exhibitors can take sustainability into account at their fair stand. The guide is divided under topics such as technology, production, travel and accommodation and waste management. Under each topic the exhibitor will find ways to be more sustainable before, during and after the event. The guide will focus on the Fastfood & Café & Restaurant Expo Helsinki.
The contents of the sustainability guide are based on the theoretical framework as well as interviews the author conducted. In the empirical part of the thesis, the author conducted several interviews with people working for the event organizer, event venue and an outside event organizer that also attended the event.
Final version of the sustainability guide was created using Canva, a free design tool, that the commissioning company uses as well. The commissioner did not set exact restrictions on the guide, and therefore, the author was able to use their creativity quite freely.
The entire process from the internship to the final product took a little over 7 months, continuing from October 2022 to May 2023. The author’s main problem and learning outcome had to do with time management, as they were working full-time in the commissioning company while also working on the thesis.
Easyfairs makes a big effort to become a more sustainable event organizer, and they have set many tangible measures to reach their goals. One of these goals is to educate exhibitors on how to be more sustainable. This thesis directly answers to their need by creating a sustainability guide for exhibitors.
The theoretical framework is based on literature research the author conducted. First, theory around sustainability and its different aspects is explained. The thesis includes background about the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals as well as Corporate Social Respon-sibility and ESG. Event Management and sustainability within the events industry are also discussed in the theoretical framework.
The purpose of this thesis is to create a sustainability guide that can be shared with exhibitors. The sustainability guide will include information about how exhibitors can take sustainability into account at their fair stand. The guide is divided under topics such as technology, production, travel and accommodation and waste management. Under each topic the exhibitor will find ways to be more sustainable before, during and after the event. The guide will focus on the Fastfood & Café & Restaurant Expo Helsinki.
The contents of the sustainability guide are based on the theoretical framework as well as interviews the author conducted. In the empirical part of the thesis, the author conducted several interviews with people working for the event organizer, event venue and an outside event organizer that also attended the event.
Final version of the sustainability guide was created using Canva, a free design tool, that the commissioning company uses as well. The commissioner did not set exact restrictions on the guide, and therefore, the author was able to use their creativity quite freely.
The entire process from the internship to the final product took a little over 7 months, continuing from October 2022 to May 2023. The author’s main problem and learning outcome had to do with time management, as they were working full-time in the commissioning company while also working on the thesis.