At edie 24, actions speak louder than words

Our mission is to deliver an event which drives tangible social and environmental change. But we must hold ourselves, our industry partners, our speakers and our delegates accountable. 

As the industry leader with more than 25 years’ heritage, it is our responsibility to set the standards when it comes to speaker diversity and inclusivity, greenwashing and action-oriented content.  

In 2023, we are proud to have achieved a gender balance of 59% women and 23% people from ethnic minorities on stage at edie 23. We were also able to eliminate greenwashing from sessions, and we ensured that all presentations included clear, actionable takeaways.

At edie 24, we pledge to uphold and advance all of these commitments.

Representation matters. We always aim to curate the absolute best, most inspiring speaker line-ups possible, and deliver sessions which are truly representative of the levels of gender balance, diversity and inclusivity that this industry is striving for. Specially: 

We will aim for a gender balance of a minimum 50% women on stage
We will increase our commitment to ethnic diversity on stage (minimum 23% people from ethnic minorities)
There will be no single-gender on single-ethnicity panel discussion across all stages
Our publisher's full Equality & Diversity Policy can be viewed here

We know corporate greenwash when we see it, and there is certainly no place for it at edie 24. Weeding it out entirely can be tough, though, especially given the recent surge of net-zero commitments and associated “grey areas” such as Scope 3 emissions and carbon offsetting.  

That said, we will be reinforcing a clear set of guidelines and principles that all edie 24 speakers and partners must adhere to in order to feature at the event. Specifically:

All speakers will be vetted by our events team before being given a place on the programme
All presentations will be vetted by our events team to ensure they focus on the topic at hand and not purely the successes of an individual/organisation
Panel discussions will be open for audience questions, and our chairs will be briefed to be asked the questions that have been most upvoted the most by our audience on the event app

There will be no sales pitches at any time on any stage

An event is only as good as the ideas and outputs that it generates, and nowhere is that more important than in the sustainability and net-zero space. Whether it’s setting bolder climate targets, implementing new initiatives or forming new collaborations, edie 24 will make a genuine difference to the world. Specifically:  

We will aim for edie 24 to have an even more positive impact than edie 23, with a minimum of 92% of attendees telling us it has had a positive impact on their sustainability/net-zero strategy in our post-event survey
Every presentation will include clear and actionable takeaways

Workshops will be professionally facilitated with an output-focussed agenda  
QR Codes will be placed around the event and displayed during sessions, linking through to relevant content outputs   
Our content team will produce an edie 24 “Action Plan” report, listing all of the key outputs from across the two days – to be shared with all delegates after the event

Our Mission