The organization shall determine the boundaries and applicability of the event sustainability management system to establish its scope.
REQUIREMENTS:
Clause ‘4.3 Determining the scope of the event sustainability management system’ requires that the boundaries and applicability of the event sustainability management system are determined, so that an adequate scope of the system can be defined.
EDUCATION:
It is up to the organisation to decide what is included in the scope of the event sustainability management system.
This will generally include all event activities which are under control or significant influence of the organization. Certainly the scope should not be so narrow as to exclude elements that interested parties would view as the responsibility of the event organizer. Nor should it be so broad that it would be impossible to control practical aspects, communicate with all interested parties, train all the team, collect all the performance data etc.
The organization may choose to exclude aspects of the event planning cycle which are already considered in great detail by other areas of the organization. This would be particularly relevant where there are legal or regulatory requirements, for example around workplace health and safety, risk assessments, attendee safety, security etc.
RELEVANT SEMS QUESTION:
All qualifying questions will establish the scope that the SEMS Tool and management system covers.
You may need to ask for additional information.
EXAMPLE OF EVIDENCE TEXT:
For an organisation that owns and manages a single event or umbrella event:
XYZ Organisation's scope of the event sustainability management system includes:
- The year round office/organisation based activities
- All events in XYZ Organisation controlled venues.
Excluded from the scope are:
- Event activities that occur in venues which are not under the direct managerial or operational control of XYZ Organisation, but which are hired/host events under the XYZ Organisation's event umbrella
- Workplace health and safety as this is dealt with in detail already.
- Food health and safety as this is handled by our catering manager liaison with the local Council health inspectors and is a regulatory requirement.
- Safety and crowd control for attendees, as this is already managed by the safety department and is a requirement of our event license with insurers, Council and Police.
For an event organising company that manages events for clients:
XYZ Organisation's scope of the event sustainability management system includes:
- Requirements as they relate to our company's principles of sustainable development, staff, policies, procedures and processes.
- All procedure and process documentation with sustainability relevance that form the basis of all company operational practices for general event planning and delivery.
- All office based procurement for our organisation.
Where a client indicates they wish their event to be produced sustainability:
- Policy is related to the client event.
- Objectives are formed for the client event.
- Interested parties are identified and engaged for the client event.
- Issues are identified, and plans of action put in place for managing these issues, for the client event.
- Operational control, non conformities and corrective action for the client event.
AUDITOR INSTRUCTIONS:
- Review the qualifying questions and the freeform text provided upon application of an audit so that a clear understanding of the organization, and sample event being audited is achieved.
- Ask for additional evidence of the scope of the management system being confirmed in writing somewhere.
- View stated justification of scope of the management system.
- This may be in the policy for example.
- Question relevant staff member/s about this to ensure the scope is known and understood.
AUDIT OUTCOMES:
- The scope of the management system has been defined.