How to Reduce the Carbon Footprint Caused by Flights and Travel

Intro: Great events create great brands, and it takes a village to put on an event that engages, excites and connects audiences to your brand. And we're that village. I'm Alyssa. I'm Paulina. And I'm Rachel. And you're listening to great events, the podcast for all people interested in events and marketing.

Alyssa: Hello everyone. What has been going on in this wide, wide world of events? My name is Alyssa and welcome to this week's episode of Great Events, a podcast by Cvent. Today I am joined by my fellow co-host, Rachel Andrews, and we have a very special guest this week. Today I am super excited to introduce to you our guest speaker, Timothy, AKA Tim Jones, who is the Head of Corporate Travel here at Cvent. Tim, welcome to the show.

Timothy: Well, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. As Alyssa said, I head up our corporate travel program and, as an extension of that, I'm one of the technical leads on our ESG program

Alyssa: Awesome. Yeah, as Tim just alluded to we work very closely with Tim on a number of things. I think Rachel can probably testify to that even more than myself being the Head of our Meetings and Events team. But we asked him to join us on the show because as you can hear from his background, especially as it relates to ESG, he is really instrumental in Cvent’s coordination around sustainability specifically.

And that cross coordination effort that goes across all departments to ensure that we meet our own sustainability goals, our sustainability targets, namely around carbon. We're going to get into all of that today.So we're going to take the time to grill Tim on everything he knows about sustainability  and his perspectives being at that corporate level, you know, he's not on the meetings and events team. And so it helps us to understand and contextualize some of these goals that are starting to be enforced within the meetings and events program, and helps us to really tie everything back to the business operation at hand.

So with that, I'm going to start with our first question. Rachel and I are going to kind of go back and forth on our interview style today. So, we are both in the driver's seat, which will be really fun. So Tim, I'm going to start with kind of a softball question. What is Cvent trying to do today? Like, do we have a goal? What does that look like?

Timothy: We actually have two parts to sustainability and carbon emissions. Like many companies, we have made a decision that we would like to reduce our carbon emissions, from our various parts of operations. You know, real estate travel, the whole gamut. Separate from that, we do have sustainability goals as far as recycling of office supplies including, computer hardware and the like. So the main purpose is to be a better corporate citizen in this regard. And, we're hearing that that's what a lot of our customers expect from us and they're looking to us for ideas. So we're just trying to be on the forefront for both.

Alyssa: There's a lot of talk about carbon neutral, carbon negative, net zero, all this, it has like this, like carbon jargon. I wish that rhymed a little bit better. It's close enough so it makes me happy. But can you kinda unpack some of those key concepts for us? And you even alluded to some of them just as you were speaking just then, and so can you kind of just talk through what all this, all of these carbon things are?

Timothy: It can be a very complicated topic if you want it to be, but to boil it down to its simplest form, carbon neutrality is usually a combination of two things: Actually reducing your carbon emissions through various means that I know we'll talk about later in the podcast. But then combining that with a carbon offset, which is a purchase you know, of a carbon offset. There are many different organizations you can partner with for this, and the goal between those two is that your organization will have been carbon neutral, meaning the carbon that you did emit from your operations, that you're just not going to be able to completely eliminate. You've done some good for the world by offsetting that with an environmentally friendly purchase of some sort, which I believe we're going to cover in detail in a few minutes.

Alyssa: Rachel, do you have any follow up questions to that?

Rachel: No, I guess, we like to, I like to dumb it down even further. Like, I feel like the neutral aspects, I mean, we should dig into it now, right? I guess, can you give us some examples right now, Tim, of things that corporations are doing, and it doesn't have to be just Cvent. That organizations are doing to be neutral versus offset. I know you mentioned a lot of partnerships with other companies. I think people are still at that baseline phase of knowing things. And the more information we can share, the better. We were talking before we got on this podcast of how can we just have more of that knowledge share of that community and of what other people are doing to help others. Like we, we should be shouting from the rooftops as much as we can. What we're doing because it is such an important topic. So help give us some examples here.

Timothy: No, no, it, it is a very important topic, and I think that's step one in any company's decision to move forward with an ESG program is there really does have to be a commitment from all levels of the organization, from the road warrior travelers or the people conducting the business all the way through management, because there are going to be cost implications. Some for the better. Some obviously will be expenditures, but, you know, once you have the buy-in, then you can decide the course of action that you want to take for the program. So a typical program to answer your question would be, you know a non-manufacturing company, you know, software company or something like that. Like in those cases, the most carbon emissions are going to come from corporate travel and, and things of that nature. So, You know, obviously step one is where possible make corporate travel more efficient. And I say make it more efficient rather than just reduce, because there are two ways to do it.

Obviously reducing travel or eliminating travel would eliminate a carbon footprint, you know, for a lot of companies. But that is the lifeblood of a lot of companies as well. You know, whether it's sales teams traveling to visit customers or, you know, like in our case actually going to support customers at their different events or on a customer's behalf. So there is going to be a certain amount of travel that the business just needs to do. So there are ways that you can make that more efficient rather than reduce it. So a couple easy ways to do that would be obviously, combining trips when possible so that you're not, you know, always out and back from your headquarters or regional office. You know, if you have a meeting in Las Vegas and a meeting in San Francisco, make them all part of the same trip, and that can, you know, that alone could potentially cut your emission for two trips in half because, you know, you're having a flight to Las Vegas, a short flight in between, and then a flight back to your corporate office. You know, so there are things like that. I think we'll get into more detail and travel in, in, in a minute so I can speak to that. Once you've measured what your carbon output is, let's say from travel, and you make decisions on how to make it more efficient or even reducing it to some degree.

You know, there is going to be a point at which you hit a plateau or even a wall that you can't reduce it any further, or you're going to have a negative impact on the business. So then what companies would turn to, would be the carbon offset. So there are a lot of different ways to do carbon offsets.

There are many different organizations, but some of the more popular ones would be offset credits, which is what they would be called, for sustainable projects, wind farms, solar projects in the desert, that type of thing. And how those work. You know, again, you're boiling it down to a very simple nature. How those work, someone builds a solar farm in the desert. You know, obviously , the goal is to pump green energy into the grid, so you would purchase credits and each project, you know, has different charges they do for their offsets. It depends on the length of that particular project, you know, some projects have a timeline, some are indefinite, like a wind farm, you know, would be expected to be.

Rachel: That's, that's so interesting to me. Like the credit portion. Like do I get monopoly  money here or is it just like, Hey, you get bonus 10 points in this, in this game, you know, for lack of a better way to explain it. It's like, okay, so if my carbon emissions are a hundred. The score’s a hundred and I purchased a hundred credits for offset.

I know that the offsets are kind of different than credits. Carbon offsets being like planting a million trees or something like that versus buying somebody else's credits that they're already doing. Right. Is that what I'm kind of getting here?

Timothy: It's similar to that. And, and to be fair to answer your skepticism a bit at the beginning, you know, there are, two sides of the argument. Obviously,  you know, I think of myself as an environmentalist. So I want to believe that purchasing the offset credits is doing good for the world.

But you know, in any science field there has to be room for critique. And some of the room for critique with the offset credits are they actually doing any good? How is that measured? And you know, in some cases could a project even be doing harm to the environment unintentionally, obviously.

So I think it is an area that does require some continued discussion. I think the environment obviously is very important top of mind with people and companies alike. But, I think it is something that does have to be explored. But in the, the example you gave that I supported, you know, you purchased your offset credits and, you know, the assumption would be that through that purchase, that equivalent of clean energy was put into the grid, thereby reducing reliance on coal power plants or oil fire power plants or something of that nature.

Like you said, there are projects that, in lieu of industrialization would purchase land and plant the trees. And part of the offset purchase is so that the owner of that land has incentive to keep the trees there instead of selling it to build a factory. So that's, you know, a little bit behind the scenes of how it's monetized. You are incentivizing someone to use their space on the earth to do something that is, hopefully good for the environment or certainly perceived good for the environment.

But, you know, again, that's where a little bit of scientific debate would come in there. I think the consensus is that it does do good for the world.

Rachel: I know we're still baselining, but, just really quick, your 30 second description of the Paris Agreements and corporate, like why that's driving so much corporate commitment. I know it's driving a ton of change. I know it was signed a while ago and it's kind of funny cause people are just now realizing that they, not, not just now.

I know a lot of companies have been ahead of it, but it feels like a lot more people are paying attention. Can you speak, just shed a little light to that. I know there's deadlines and things like that.

Alyssa: Yeah, I'll just to like double down on that, like what's driving this awakening? Like why now? You know, because the Paris Accord agreement happened years ago, so why is this just now in 2023 becoming what feels like an avalanche? Truly, our customers are coming to us asking exponentially more questions related to sustainability now.

Timothy: I think a lot of it has to do actually with the news, the news cycle you see on the news hurricanes and bad weather with increasing intensity. You see, heat waves in Europe in areas that aren't used to it. Just, for lack of a better term, the changing climate. It's becoming a daily event.

More and more people are being subjected to it, mostly in negative ways, flooding and things of that nature. So I think what is driving the sudden conversations is urgency. We have as a human race finally come to the realization that we do have a problem and we need to solve it, or worse consequences would potentially be to come.

So, you know, the Paris Accord, you know, many countries of the world got together, decided that they were going to take the tough steps to reduce or eliminate their greenhouse gasses. The target year is 2050, so, you know, 2050 off the top of your head seems far away, but we're 2023, that's not that far away.

And, you know, these things do take time to do. Obviously we can't go from being a relatively carbon, as a species, we have a significant amount of carbon emissions, flights, cars, ships, you know, trains, all of these things. It would be impractical for the human race to completely change everything overnight.

So, you know what the Paris Accord, I think did, was give people a framework that was believed to be realistic. By this date, we can make meaningful change to avoid potentially worse consequences. So, the thought is, what amount of temperature we need to keep the world from achieving, you know, it's one and a half degrees Celsius above temperature or two degrees, what will be the catastrophic tipping point?

You know, I think, that gets talked about quite a bit and, you know going back to my earlier comment, the scientific debate part is, you know, is that realistic number or do we need to make reductions at any cost to prevent, cataclysmic climate events? Interestingly enough, the United States actually dropped out of the Paris Accord, under President Trump's administration.

I believe we've formally reentered, or at least announced our intention to re enter under the Biden administration. So that alone also tells you that there's a debate. Obviously there's scientific debate, but there's also political debate. And, you know, behind that is, is what we're talking about here.

You know, individuals and companies have to decide where they stand. Cvent and most of our employees believe it is an issue and we want to do our part as a good corporate citizen to help

Alyssa: I think something I've also been keenly aware of is just investor behavior changing as a result of Tim, to your point, maybe what's going on in the news cycle, there is this change in expectations from investors and, you know, who they're, putting their dollars, investing their dollars in companies that care and that matter, and that are doing good. Not just making money. It's not just about the profitability. So it is this kind of duality that we're in right now. And I do think a lot of this scrutiny has to do with investor behavior right now. And I don't know if that is a millennial change, if it's a Gen Z change, you know, I'm speculating here, but, that's what we tend to do on this podcast, right.

Timothy: No, and that. And that's a good point. As a matter of fact, I believe later this year, ESG reporting actually is going to fall under a formality for public companies under SEC guidelines. Whereas previously, you know, these things were voluntary. You know, companies would produce their own white papers and their own reports.

You know, Cvent, we're deciding our path forward on what type of things we're going to make public versus things we want to work on internally. But you know, you hit the nail on the head. I think it is, again, individuals raising their voice, whether it's their personal stock investments or through their mutual fund managers or whatever the case may be, that this is an important topic to them and they want to have their money invested in companies that share that belief.

Now, like I've said in a couple points here, there's also the opposite side. There are organizations, states, you know, mutual fund managers and such that specifically will not use those criteria, you know, so it does go both ways. My personal opinion is, you know, doing something that's good for the environment can't be bad, if at the end of the day, if we make the world a cleaner, more inhabitable place.

I don't see any bad part of that. I don't, I don't see a negative side if, if the company voluntarily, you know, decides to make sure that, you know, they do their part for cleaner air, cleaner water, reducing emissions.

Rachel: I think it comes down to the bottom line though, Tim, right? Like, I think that if you're seeking a profit, and in the immediate future, it doesn't look profitable to invest in it. It's hard for people to see. It depends. It depends on what side of the spectrum you're on.

Alyssa: And I think that's a good segue to our next question, which is like, how do you get started? You know, Cvent started out, I'll say, when I first came to this organization seven to ten years ago. This wasn't really part of our corporate culture, our corporate zeitgeist, but I can see us making strides to move the needle.

So I'm curious, twofold. How would you suggest a company get started? How did we start, go about setting our goals, but also then where do you think Cvent is on this journey? Like, if you were to kind of put us on some kind of evolutionary model, how would you kind of rate where we are today?

Timothy: To be honest, I think the best place to start would be to look at your industry peers, which we did at Cvent. We looked at other software companies, what they were doing. We reviewed reports that they had produced white papers, we've spoken with them. There are organizations, such as EcoVadis and SBTI that we looked at their information.

We started collecting data, so that's an important first step. Collecting data. There are a variety of tools that you can use to calculate carbon emissions or estimate your carbon emissions, and then from that point decide what you want to do. You know, obviously in most cases, the next step would be to reduce or offset or a combination thereof.

I think one of the guiding principles I've seen quite a bit is, you know, most companies try to reduce,  let's say 50% of their target is actual reduction, and then no more than 50% is through the offset method. And the reason people do that is so that, you know, you don't just continue to have carbon and then buy your way out of it.

You don't just offset everything. You actually try a combination because, like I said at the beginning, there are going to be some things that, to Rachel's point in the course of trying to be a profitable business, you won't be able to eliminate. So, you know, that's where the offsets come in. 

Where Cvent is on the journey, I think we're not at the beginning, but we're at an early stage. You know, we are still evaluating what makes the most sense for us. We have internally set some targets and we're in the process of having those validated and we intend to make some things public later this year, but we are, you know, still for lack of a better term, learning what the landscape is and what we want to do.

And we're learning a lot of that from our customers. What do our customers expect and want to see from us as their vendor and what are they doing just as a peer, you know, what are they doing in their program that might be beneficial for us to copy in our program and vice versa? So I think a lot of it is talking to your peers and others in the industry, but I also think, you know, as a topic, I don't think Cvent is unique at being at an early stage. Because like you said a few minutes ago, you all of a sudden it's become very popular and I think that's the case in corporate America.

A lot of companies have started producing reports, but they've only been doing it for a year or two. You know, you, you might find a few that have been doing it for many years, but that I think will be in the. Very small minority. I think most companies are at a relatively early stage, and I think that we're also in a place in the journey that many of us expect that there'll be changes. You know, this is what we have in place today, but maybe next year new science will come along or new abilities to change these things will come along. So maybe we'll need to make adjustments. But I think at the end of the day, we would all agree that as long as we are continuing down the path to make the world a cleaner, more sustainable place than the better.

Rachel: What are you following to stay on top of that? Is it just government regulations coming out? Are there any, you know, what should people be paying attention to? Because there's a lot of noise in this space. Like what do you pay attention to, Tim? To stay on top of it.

Timothy: So there's, there's quite a few things. Government regulations obviously, are potentially the most important because those are required, you are required to comply. You know, we mentioned throughout the podcast complexity and government regulations, probably are the epitome of complexity because they are very different globally.

For example, the UK and European Union have taken very aggressive approaches to carbon reduction. You know, for example, the EU is actively working with airlines to ban flights under certain lengths, requiring them to eliminate those flights in favor of pushing people towards train travel.

Obviously, in the US our infrastructure is a little bit different, so we aren't going to that length yet. We do have environmental regulations. So obviously we have to comply, you know, different countries around the world. You know, so there's the regulatory point of view, but then again, there's also what your peers do because it is also very important to share information as far as this is concerned, because there are many organizations that will do your validation, you know, validate what you believe your carbon emissions currently are and what your sustainability program, they have various scoring methods. But you know, there are several organizations. There isn't a unified standard to environmental practice as of yet. Whether one will come or not, I think, remains to be seen. You know, I think that ties back to the fact that regulations are very different in different parts of the world. But, I think, this is a key area where industry best practice would be your guiding light. You know, what is the best practice, you know, for software companies?

What is the best practice for manufacturers? Manufacturers are in a very different predicament because they have, you know, if they travel, they'll obviously have that, but their carbon emissions probably come a greater extent from their manufacturing operations. So their needs and science and what their peers are doing will be very different than ours. But obviously very important as well. What can they do to help their reduction?

Rachel: Let's actually dig into, I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about the marriage of travel and events. Obviously everyone's talking about a greener future of meetings and events. Right? And events and business travel drive a lot of revenue for companies. Obviously Tim and I work really closely on our event program and the travel that goes hand in hand with that. And so event planners and people that drive event experiences, I don't want to say, are shaking in their boots when we talk about reduction of travel, but it is a very hot topic for us because without traveling to events, we don't have events. Yes, you can do it virtually, but people want to go and meet face-to-face. We have known historically that face-to-face drives way more business than virtual. I'm not saying virtual is not important. Zoom has changed our lives, right? And virtual events are still taking place. But Tim, on that, help us explain on the event planning strategy side of things, like that's a huge piece of this puzzle. And there's major categories of that carbon expenditure. So can you just break down like from your lens, what that looks like?

Timothy: Well, there are a couple different things. So there's carbon emissions and then there's also sustainability. So sustainability, I think from a  travel and meetings perspective is the easier of the two, you know, that would involve using bad stock and such that's recyclable.

You know, using plastics that are easily recyclable, trying to eliminate them all together. Maybe in lieu of badges you go all to electronic QR codes on phones and different types of technology. There's all kinds of different things we can do out there. When you travel, you don't get a paper boarding pass anymore in a lot of cases.

So, you know, that helps with being sustainable, you know, as far as not, depleting the earth's resources. Now, the carbon emission side, is the conundrum, like you were saying, the travel itself, because there's no way, currently, you know, to avoid that. You know, hopefully in the future there'll be.

Planes or trains that will be actually completely, you know, carbon neutral. They won't, or even not emit any carbon, maybe we'll have solar power trains. They've talked about solar power planes and, you know, different things that sound a bit like the Jetsons, but maybe they will come someday. You know, it is, you know, as Alyssa said it's popular topic, so I think it is driving scientists to find solutions to these things, but you know, that drive is also helping get more information out to customers.

So on the travel front, you know, airlines and railroads are now doing something they hadn't done previously. They're actually listing if you pay attention when you book your next flight, you probably will notice they actually have a carbon emissions listing under the flight. And the reason that is, you know, they're investing a lot of money in new, more fuel efficient airplanes.

And it will allow you to distinguish one airline from another, like one airline who's investing in fuel efficient planes. Maybe your corporate policy will be to guide more business to them because, you know, on each flight if you can save 20 or 50 or a hundred kilos of carbon emissions because that carrier is using a more efficient plane, that adds up over a hundred trips, a thousand trips, 5,000 trips.

Same with hotels. In the event space, you know, one of the biggest components are hotel room nights. But, buildings have various levels of lead certification on how efficient they are with carbon emissions. So, you combine those two things that can be a very powerful way to help address the problem because, I think, you know, the human species, you know, regardless of our industry, humans like that interaction.

We like personal interaction with each other, being able to come together and, and be in the same space. So that isn't something we're going to be able to deprogram. So we have to find a way to make it better, more efficient, more environmentally friendly. And I think we are making strides. Along those paths, you know, environmentally friendly jet fuel, you know, has been tested in a lot of cases.

There are, you know, certain airports that are using that more than others. So, you know, as customers maybe we start to demand more airlines use that. You know, obviously they're going to be implications. Maybe that will cost. $5 more for your plane ticket, but substantially reduce that flight's carbon emission.

So, you know, there are different conversations to be had, but you know, I think there are ways that we will be able to keep doing what we're doing, meetings, travels, events, and just do it better in a more efficient, more environmental way.

Rachel: Is there a way to measure emissions? I know you guys have talked to, like, talked about level 1, 2, 3 before, internally, but, externally, is there a way that people can start to use that in their events programs like rating certain things, listing out all the things that we do at events that may be in the sustainability category, and then how do you rank them?

1, 2, 3, I guess is that part of the baselining for people? How do you explain that kind of scope?

Timothy: So the scopes wouldn't really come into play here. What the scopes describe are the type of emission, if you will. So scope one, for example, you know, would be like a company's corporate owned car, something they have direct control over, a manufacturer, it might be their manufacturing facility.

A scope two, for example, would be electric, things of that nature at the corporate office. I think a vast majority of meetings, travel and events, fall under scope three. That would all be scope three items. The actual flight and the hotel room nights are all scope three. So, you know, scope three, I think, like we said earlier, I think we'll make up a majority of the carbon emissions for a non-manufacturer, you know, so I think that would be the area to focus on. And in many measuring models or measurement models, you know, there are different attention, you know, different levels of attention paid to each of the scopes and how you reduce. So scope three would focus you know, a lot of cases on, making travel more, more efficient, or reducing travel to some degree.

Rachel: Okay. Yeah, it is just a lot to unpack. I think for, especially, you know, at the corporate level, thank you for drilling down on a lot of the corporate level stuff as it comes to it. Hopefully, event profs and marketers can find that beneficial as they're looking at their own program. I think for ours, I'll just put my own 2 cents in here.

From our corporate events standpoint, we are listing out every single thing that we do that impacts sustainability at large. You know, type three emissions included, and then working across the corporate sphere to see, okay, how to, is this across the corporation or is this only controlled by our team?

Obviously the ones that are controlled by our team we can do a lot more with than things that are at the corporate level. And so it's just like identifying who you need to work with at your organization. So, you know, I know event profs are always asking like, where do I start? And it's like, kind of like, just start with a list.

Start with a list of what you have control over, and then the gray areas of what you have semi control over, like our, our travel programs within events. For example, do we start doing more local programs and getting people in? Do we, you know, really look at staffing on site and really see if we really need to send that many internal people.

Like those are some of the questions that you need to ask in your own meetings programs. I know that's something Tim and I are, are discussing and then baseline that at those events each year so that you have year over year records of how many people flew to these events? You know, how many, obviously you're already keeping track of your attendance goals and things like that, but how do you, how do you baseline that every year? Every events program's different.

Every events program might grow year over year. So how do you also keep carbon emissions and sustainability at large in your scope as you're doing that without jeopardizing the success of your event program?

Timothy: And I think your team actually does an exceptional job. You really touched on a key item. I think that is sort of like a secret weapon, if you will, and that is leveraging local staff for the events. You know, we obviously have our major events in Las Vegas and London.

And you leverage your team that's local to those locations, to an exceptional degree. And I think that is something that other companies can certainly copy. You know, obviously the guests and things will fly in from all over the world. But, if you're having a meeting in a location where you have, you know, a decent amount of people that are commutable to that.

It obviously makes the most sense to give them preference. Like all of those people should attend to minimize the number of people you need to fly in from other locations, and I think your team does that very well.

Alyssa: And I was just going to say something that I think you're also taking for granted as you're giving suggestive advice to other peer planner peers is that you are communicating with our Head of Travel, Tim, like that conversation helps to connect the dots to tile the pieces together and helps you prioritize what you would even put on that list, right?

Because I think that list could get very long, very lengthy, or not necessarily organized in any way. But because you're coordinating and tying our meetings and events department to the broader corporate objectives and the ultimately the bigger goals that we've set, it allows you to focus where you need to, which is clearly situated on a lot of the travel and the carbon that's contained within the travel components since that is a heavy part of the program.

Timothy: And I think that's the key for anyone's program is that inter department communication and buy-in, that is, I think, really essential because, you really do want everyone to be on board. And, you want to make sure that it is an important issue. We have done internal surveys at Cvent, of our employees, you know, just asking them is environmental, you know, are environmental concerns important to you? Are social concerns important to you? Is governance, you know, an important topic? And it is, you know, which is why we've decided that, you know, regardless of external factors, this is something that's important to our employees, so we want to do it. And I think, I think that helps guarantee the success of the program because if you're at an organization where there isn't buy-in it would be more challenging obviously, because if, if you know, the executive team or, or you know, specific departments or, or things of that nature aren't willing to help support the program, it would be very difficult or even, impossible depending on the circumstances. So I think we're very fortunate and I'm very happy at Cvent that we do have buy-in. We're, you know, the executives are obviously very interested in it, the employees, and that's across all different demographics.

You know, at Cvent we have employees in all different age categories, but it's one of those things we found is universally appealing. Everyone seems to find it a very important issue. They think it will impact them personally. They think it will impact us as a company and even impact the industry and the country.

You know, we asked the question a lot of different ways and they want to do their part and there are, there are other things, you know, that companies can do beyond travel, that could be even more fun, employee engagement days to benefit the environment. You know, there's obviously, you know, I think you hear a lot of times, probably even in, in a joking fashion, days where people go out and plant trees and such.

But you know, it doesn't have to be like that. There could be fun things that companies could do from an engagement standpoint that would benefit

Rachel: Yeah, well, Tim, sign me up to plant some trees out in Denver. I'm on it. I'm going to do my part.

Timothy: Well, you know, we're, we're headquartered not far from the Chesapeake Bay. One of the things I was thinking about is, you know, they have those programs where you go plant the oyster beds cuz that helps purify the water. 

Rachel: I’ll fly back for it. Just kidding.

Alyssa: All right, Tim. Well, it has been a great conversation and wonderful to have you on the podcast. Listeners. We hope that you enjoyed our chat today as well and found some inspiration or some actionable takeaways that will help inspire you to think differently about how your corporate strategy might impact your meetings and events, programs now and into the future. Thank you all so much for joining. Once again, if you have any topics or people that you'd like to add to our 2023 lineup DM us on LinkedIn, send us a note on Instagram or as always, you can email us at greatevents@cvent.com.

Thanks for tuning in to great events. We'll see you next time.