New events climate conference to be launched in Barcelona

The event will be held alongside PCMA Convening EMEA 2024.

The event featuring climate friendly tech will be held in Barcelona.
The event featuring climate friendly tech will be held in Barcelona. Photo Credit: Adobe stock/Vitalez

A new conference featuring ‘ground-breaking climate-friendly technologies’ that can make business events more sustainable will be held in Barcelona, Spain, next year.

The event will be held concurrently with PCMA Convening EMEA 2024, September 30 – October 2, and aims to create 'new business models' for conferences.

The meeting is the brainchild of the Strategic Alliance of the National Convention Bureaux of Europe (SANCBE) who will work with PCMA in delivering the event.

While the event will be focused on reducing the impact of business events, other industries and sectors will be invited to share their expertise, including aviation.

The shape of the event has yet to be decided, but it is unlikely to feature keynote speakers or traditional formats, focusing instead on peer-to-peer problem solving and knowledge sharing.

“Business events are an essential setting for solving complex issues,” said Sherrif Karamat, PCMA president and CEO. “The sustainability conference will allow people to come together to ensure knowledge transfer, create networks, and provide platforms on which answers to the overarching questions of our time are developed.”

SANCBE co-chairs Matthias Schultze, managing director, German Convention Bureau and Eric Bakermans, director marketing meetings & conventions, Netherlands Board of Tourism & Conventions said in a statement: “The challenges of sustainability and the digital transformation are global in nature and can thus only be addressed through cooperation, common goals and frameworks, and a shared vision. In Europe, 29 countries are already working together within SANCBE to develop solutions for this twin transformation. Together with PCMA our new conference, initiated and hosted in Europe, will expand this movement to the global scale.”

Karamat added: “The consistently sustainable organisation of events can only succeed in conjunction with technological solutions – and both those topics lie at the heart of PCMA’s work. We are therefore more than happy to join forces with SANCBE to unleash the full potential of our communities together and combine our strategic knowledge to co-create a sustainable future for business events.”

Source: AMI