European Political Community (EPC) Summit 2024

The 4th European Political Community (EPC) Summit was hosted by the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom at Blenheim Palace on Thursday 18 July 2024.

With the Summit playing host to world leaders and hundreds of delegates and media personnel, and with a Royal Reception hosted by the King, it was imperative that the UK and FCDO maintain their high reputation for the organisation and delivery of this international event, with delegate experience at the forefront of the planning.

During event planning and delivery programme, we ensured that the venue could remain open to the public whilst protecting the heritage and natural habitat features of the venue and its grounds.

Applying a sustainability focus throughout, we were able to deliver the event so that the FCDO attained the ISO20121 Event Sustainability Standard and carbon neutrality, validated by PAS2060.

Key wins included a social impact of £45,448.98 provided to charities, schools and community hubs as part of product orders and donated to charities as part of material donations. Another win saw waste emissions 90% lower than the industry standard benchmark for a comparable event. The event achieved zero waste to landfill, with 834kg of food waste processed onsite using Blenheim Palace's Ecobot.

Ultimately the key to success was that this was a collective enterprise. By combining the individual advances of everyone involved – the FCDO’s strong sustainability framework, the venue’s advanced waste management programme, our production team’s rigorous and creative hire-first and recycle approach, our suppliers’ active contribution to providing detailed data for measuring and reducing our carbon footprint – we were able to achieve such an ambitious result.