Episode #89: Selina Donald on Bringing Sustainability To The Event Industry

The Discomfort Practice

In this episode of the Discomfort Practice, I talk with my former client, friend and general badass Selina Donald. Selina has done so much already in her life, so prepare yourself to be inspired to think differently. She has worked on large-scale events, such as the Olympic and Para-Olympic opening and closing ceremonies and Vivian Westwood’s climate revolution. She worked on England’s 2018 World Cup bid for the Rio Olympics and has been part of the senior management team for ITV events. She co-founded the sustainable events agency The Bulb, which helps companies produce sustainable, creative and meaningful events. She also often passionately speaks on issues of women’s empowerment, female entrepreneurship and gender equality.

We chat about the current unsustainable practices of the creative and events industry, and how Selina has been proving through her own work that it’s possible to be creative, exciting and environmentally responsible. We will get into what sustainable brands can do when their events don’t reflect their company values (because, spoiler alert, they often don’t). We also dive into how Selina structures her day to allow the time and space to make conscious, sustainable choices in her own life and business.

This is a super fun episode full of laughs, so tune in for Selina’s inspiring story and so much more. Enjoy!

Key Points Discussed:

• How Selina being a vegetarian as a child triggered her to how sustainability could be applied to her career (3:40)
• The discomfort but also movement that has come in the events industry, because of the Pandemic, which has ended up working to Selina’s advantage (10:40)
• How the discomfort of the failure of her first business Bulb 101, made her take a step back and come back with knowledge from the failures and resurrected into a sustainability consultancy for event organisers (12:55)
• Being burnt out and moving back in with parents at age 35, with no savings and no pension (17:00)
• How learning to put a value on her time made Selina charge for her worth and say no to things that don’t reflect that. Protecting both her energy and her time (21:15)
• The power of saying No (24:50)
• The environmental and sustainability issues that the Event industry faces (29:40)
• Making the Olympics opening and closing ceremonies the most sustainable events possible. As well as bringing sustainability to the forefront (36:35)
• Working on Lush’s naked packaging and other brands/artists on recycled materials (38:05)
• How Selina’s hatred for her legal career took her through another story of failure to an exciting career (48:25)
• How composting at events is not actually a viable sustainable option (54:10)

Connect with Selina:

• Selina on The Bulb website
• Selina on Twitter

Connect with Betsy:

• Betsy on Instagram
• Betsy on Twitter
• Betsy on Linkedin

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