It’s rare these days to find event planners who don’t consider sustainability when they’re planning. Most event planners consider how to make their events more sustainable while staying within their budgetary constraints. This includes things like reducing waste and the environmental impact of their event.
One of the most common ways event planners create a more sustainable event is by reducing their reliance on single-use plastics. For decades, event planners have turned to one-time-use plastic water bottles to hydrate attendees. Unfortunately, this has a significant negative impact on the environment. In recent years, event planners have sought to eliminate single-use plastics and replace them with more sustainable alternatives.
Mobile water stations are among the easiest and most impactful alternatives to plastic water bottles. If you’re planning an event, what should you know about mobile water stations and how they can help you achieve your sustainability targets?
Assessing Your Sustainability Targets
Most organizations have incorporated sustainability goals into their event planning strategies. It’s no longer enough to only make sustainable choices when there’s an obvious eco-friendly option. Instead, event planners are given specific goals and required to meet them during event planning and execution.
Some of the most common environmental goals include:
- Reducing landfill waste
- Improving recycling outcomes
- Lowering carbon emissions
- Demonstrating environmental responsibility
These goals show event sponsors and attendees that an organization has prioritized the environment and cares about the impact of its event. Not only is this good for the environment, but it also benefits the organization by improving public perception and influencing potential sponsors.
But this doesn’t mean that event planners can overlook other important aspects of planning, including the health and safety of event attendees. Keeping participants hydrated is still a major consideration. And these days, more and more event planners are finding that mobile water stations help them meet their sustainability goals AND keep attendees hydrated and healthy.
Impact of Single-Use Water Bottles
Before examining the benefits of mobile water stations, it helps to consider the negative impact of the alternative: single-use plastic water bottles.
This has been the go-to solution for keeping people hydrated at events for decades. Unfortunately, aside from being somewhat convenient, it’s expensive and terrible for the environment. Event planners deal with a variety of challenges when providing hydration via single-use bottles, including:
- Transportation
- Storage
- Distribution
- Disposal
Even when event planners commit to aggressive recycling efforts, single-use plastic bottles are not the best solution. Large events can generate thousands of empty water bottles in just a few hours, creating a significant negative impact.
How Mobile Water Stations Change the Game
Thankfully, mobile hydration stations provide event attendees with easy access to drinking water while reducing the waste generated by the event. Mobile water stations offer:
- Convenient access to hydration
- Reduced wait times
- Better support for outdoor events
- Improved attendee safety and comfort during warm weather
Event planners face a win-win situation when they switch from single-use water bottles to mobile hydration stations. Not only can they meet their sustainability goals, but they can do so with a simple solution that makes everything easier and more efficient.
Eliminating plastic water bottles reduces visible waste during an event and makes after-event cleanup easier than ever. Mobile water stations also create valuable marketing and community sponsorship opportunities that aren’t possible with single-use plastic bottles.
How You Can Meet Your Sustainability Targets When Planning an Event
Smart choices for making your event more sustainable begin during the planning stages. Early planning ensures you are better able to:
- Determine attendance with more accuracy
- Meet water demand
- Choose the best placement for hydration stations
- Hit your sustainable benchmarks as affordably and conveniently as possible
Treating hydration as an important part of your event’s environmental strategy is the best way to meet your goals and avoid last-minute logistical issues in keeping event attendees hydrated.
Getting Event Attendees On Board
In some cases, the biggest challenge event planners will face is getting event attendees to participate in hydration and sustainability efforts. As important as hydration is, some people don’t prioritize it. The same is true for making sustainable choices. Often, people who are used to doing something a certain way will continue to do it that way without question. This is often why single-use plastic water bottles are the go-to choice when there are other better options.
If your goal is to create a more sustainable event while maintaining the health and hydration of attendees and you’re looking for ways to encourage them to participate, consider:
- Telling everyone to bring reusable bottles that they can refill with free water to the event
- Offering reusable cups
- Providing reusable water bottles to event attendees if it’s in the budget and/or consider partnering with a local sponsor in exchange for adding their brand logo to the bottles
Are You Ready to Make Meeting Your Sustainability Targets Easier Than Ever?
Keeping event attendees hydrated sustainably is easy when you work with Quench Buggy. To learn more or to schedule a quick call, contact us today.
