Standards & schemes
International Organization for Standardization
In brief
ISO 20121 specifies requirements for a sustainable event management system, applying to event organisers, venues and their supply chains. It traces a documented lineage: developed by BSI as BS 8901:2007 for the events industry, adopted by the London 2012 Olympics as its sustainability framework, then internationalised as ISO 20121:2012 and revised as ISO 20121:2024 (Edition 2), updated for the Paris 2024 Games era. The standard requires an organisation to identify its event-related sustainability issues — procurement, waste, energy, community legacy, inclusion — and manage them through a systematic approach with leadership commitment and continual improvement; it is a management-system standard, certifiable by third-party bodies, not an event-content checklist. As with ISO 14001, certification attests that the system exists and operates. Certification can cover an event organiser, a venue or an individual event, and the standard scales from local events to Olympic delivery. Its 2024 revision strengthened requirements on legacy, human rights and climate, aligning the standard with the current sustainability-reporting landscape. The certification does not automatically apply to every product, service or claim made by the certified organisation.
Conditional relationships
A relationship does not mean that the standard proves or validates every use of a claim.
Recognition & legal context
No reviewed law references are published.
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