Post-exhibition catch-up with Katherine Piper
Dear Future Leap community,
Wow, what a day! I am still absolutely overjoyed with how the Festival of Sustainable Business exhibition went last week.
With over 640 registered to attend the exhibition, over 50 exhibitors, 21 expert speakers, 6 funding pitches and numerous networking opportunities, it was an overwhelmingly buzzy, collaborative event. Indeed, one of our exhibitors has only just gotten his voice back after the continuous interest in his stall and I heard numerous attendees cite the various collaboration opportunities that the Festival had engendered.
I am super chuffed with this quote from an exhibitor: “I just wanted to take a minute to convey to you and the team how beneficial and progress enabling the Festival of Sustainable Business, at the Paintworks, was. The event was buzzing with positive energy from start to finish. Furthermore, the non-stop engagement from the attendees, and between stall holders, was the most intense and productive of any event I have been to in the last 10 years. Meaningful, impactful, action is coming as a direct result, therefore, Katherine and her team should be very proud of their role as “enablers of change”.”
And I am indeed, extremely proud of the Future Leap team for their efforts to put on such an amazing event.
But this would not have been possible without our wonderful sponsors. Massive thanks to our headline sponsors Building Growth South West, to our carbon offset partner Equans, our inclusivity sponsor Evelyn Partners and to all our exhibition sponsors; Bristol City Leap, Termex and Latcham.
But the team is not complacent about our events programmes and always strives to improve our offering to our community of changemakers so please do fill out your exhibition feedback form so the Festival of Sustainable Business 2024 can be even bigger and even better!
And now, we are gearing up for the final part of our 2023 Festival programme; the Sustainable Business Awards. There is still time to apply for the awards, with the deadline being just a week away on 29th June. Further info can be found here. Or come help us celebrate the awards at our sustainably sourced dinner on 9th November, with guest speakers including Bristol’s Mayor, Marvin Rees and City To Sea’s Founder, Natalie Fee.
Stepping away from our events programme, there is a lot of activity amongst the consultancy, finance, hub and retrofit teams too. We have, for example, welcomed James Sessions to the team as Ecofit’s Business Development Director and the Future Leap Finance team have launched their £10M retrofit fund. Get in touch for further info.
So, onwards with relentless optimism.
“If working apart we are a force powerful to destabilise our planet, surely working together we are powerful enough to save it.” (Attenborough, COP26)
Best wishes
Katherine
