UK: The second annual Great Green Balloon Debate has taken place in London with the winner, Safina Naz, persuading the audience on the importance of authentic marketing and tapping into “green emotions”.
The evening by The Hospitality Professionals Association (HOSPA), in collaboration with the Global Sustainability Index (GSI) and Carefree was held at The Melia White House Hotel, London.
The event takes its name from the idea that the eight guest speakers were asked to imagine they were in a hot air balloon that was losing height rapidly.
Only one person could remain in the basket to avoid it coming down – and that person would have to make the most compelling case that their area of expertise would do the most to help ‘save our planet.’
Speakers had five minutes each to present their case, with the audience then casting their votes for the winner.
If this sounds a little cutthroat – losers being thrown out of the balloon – it was far more fun (and kind) than that. For one thing, as the clock ticked down from five minutes to 0 seconds, we were instructed to applaud to indicate that a participant’s time was up – quite a nice way to finish any presentation.
Rather than pitching their own business as the ‘idea’, speakers instead spoke about topics, albeit one their business has been set up to address.
So, for instance, Kate Page from Fooditude spoke of encouraging ‘conscious consumption’ generally, and more particularly from the food we consume, and did so in an innovative way as she read from a fable she had written called ‘The Kingdom of Evermore.”
The winner was Safina Naz, PhD University of Surrey, (pictured above) who spoke of the importance of authentic marketing and ‘green emotions’ and who made the important point that if consumers were convinced by a company’s actions, not only would they return to that company but might also change their own behaviour, amplifying the effect the company was having on society at large.
Fooditude’s Kate Page and James Shorey, Planet Mark were the runners up.
Presentations were as follows
Matt Hughes, Accommodate Consulting: Sustainability as a Value Multiplier
James Shorey, Planet Mark: Everyone Everywhere
Safina Naz, PhD University of Surrey: Don’t burst the bubble
Amanda Bronkhorst, Just One Tree: Restoration of Nature
Kate Page, Fooditude: Conscious Consumption
Mark Grant, Independent Hotel Consultant: On a Carbon Crusade
Liam Jones, Olio: The Sharing Economy
Ed Perryman, Replacer: Too Much Stuff!
The event was sponsored by carefree (Change Happens Overnight) which arranges for vacant hotel rooms to be used for vital breaks for full-time unpaid carers. The charity works to encourage hundreds of hotels worldwide to donate their excess capacity to carefree, allowing carers to find a short break for a £33 admin charge (to run the charity).
The charity has delivered more than 6,000 breaks, with over 40,000 carers registered. There are over 1 million empty hotel rooms in the UK every week so the potential of short breaks per annum exceeds 20 million.
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Images: supplied