ITM and Event Cycle: Marking a Five-Year Partnership by Transforming Brighton's Conference Waste and Redefining Corporate Entertainment
Celebrating five years of consecutive partnership, The Institute of Travel Management (ITM) returned to the Brighton Hilton Metropole for their 2026 annual conference. To mark this half-decade milestone, ITM and Event Cycle set out to, once again, prove that large-scale corporate events can drive change through three entirely separate, deliberate strategies. We replaced standard corporate entertainment with a community choir of people who have experienced homelessness, executed an environmentally considerate de-rig to save 150 native wildflowers and 700 lanyards from the skip, and hosted a dedicated showcase of upcycled notebooks and textile bags to prove what is possible when you design out "event waste" from the start.
By incorporating physical asset dissolution, conscious social spending and circular innovation, the conference delivered immediate environmental diversion and real-time social equity to the city of Brighton.
Strategy 1: Social Impact in Action
Social value isn't just about what you do with leftovers after a show; it’s about where you direct your budget before the doors even open. For the 2026 conference, Event Cycle helped ITM to actively swap traditional corporate entertainment for local, grassroots social action.
Conscious Booking with the Choir with No Name: Instead of hiring standard event performers, from the Event Cycle network, ITM booked The Choir With No Name, a community choir that brings together people who have experienced homelessness and marginalisation. Rather than a passive performance, the choir ran a collaborative workshop for attendees, culminating in a powerful 5-song set alongside workshop participants to open the prestigious Gala Dinner. Supported by the Hilton team who provided hot meals for the singers, the booking put marginalized local voices center-stage in a paid, professional capacity.
Fulfilling the "Make Change Count" Campaign: To anchor their presence in Brighton, Event Cycle put forward the Make Change Count fundraising campaign for ITM to support. The campaign is Brighton and Hove's combined fundraising that provides much needed funds to local charities who support and prevent homelessness. ITM backed the city's frontline rough-sleeping services by contributing £16,619 raised the conference.
150 Rough Sleeper Packs for Anti Freeze: Moving beyond passive listening, ITM delegates spent time putting together 150 essential rough-sleeper packs using sustainable wellness items supplied by Amplify Goods. These packs were delivered directly to Anti Freeze (run by Off The Fence), putting immediate, practical survival gear into the hands of rough sleepers during Brighton’s coldest months.
Strategy 2: The Environmentally Considerate De-rig
While the social strategy set about creating awareness and creating funding, Event Cycle and ITM were also focused on the physical footprint of the conference, turning potential landfill into local community assets.
Wildflowers at The Deneway: Event Cycle sourced 150 native British wildflowers and pots from Meadow Mania to decorate the venue. To ensure these didn't end up sent to landfill after the event ended, Event Cycle spoke to Sussex Wildlife Trust who sent two of their Youth Rangers and a team leader to pot the plants to make sure they were preserved well enough to have a second life. Those exact wildflowers have now been planted at The Deneway, a youth-led nature reserve, while the pots have been absorbed into the Trust's educational department to teach future generations about horticulture.
Alongside the centrepieces, seed paper cards told the delegates all about the journey of the plants in front of them: “These centrepieces of British wildflowers, grown in the UK, were carefully potted by the Sussex Wildlife Trust’s youth rangers. After the gala dinner, ITM will donate the wildflowers to the Sussex Wildlife Trust. They will be replanted across local community parks and along the chalk paths, strengthening habitats for wildlife across Sussex. The pots will then be donated to the Trust’s educational department, which works with local schools to teach students about Sussex’s wildlife, habitats, and flora and fauna."
Lanyards skip the skip: Lanyards are notoriously difficult to recycle because they combine synthetic woven fibers, dyed plastics, and metal clips. Instead of letting all 700 lanyards end up in the general waste stream, we intercepted them at the de-rig. They were routed directly to a specialist hard-to-recycle polymer processor, where the complex materials were separated, shredded, and transformed into raw plastic pellets to be utilised in new industrial manufacturing.
Strategy 3: Circular Innovation and The "Event Waste" Showcase
To challenge the wider industry to think circular, ITM and Event Cycle hosted a dedicated display demonstrating what actually happens when you refuse to treat materials as single-use. The stand featured physical examples of creative repurposing:
Fiberlab: Produced bespoke notebooks made entirely from recycled clothing, proving how old textiles can be circularised into premium corporate stationery.
Calluna Upcycling: Engineered tote bags and PVC sleeping bag covers for the homeless using old event graphics and surplus textiles, showing delegates how marketing materials can be given a practical and purposeful second life.
The repurposed products have been kept by ITM to showcase circular examples at future events.
Repurposing with Purpose
By partnering with Event Cycle for half a decade, ITM has proven that annual conferences don't have to leave a heavy footprint or a passive legacy. A delegate's workshop activity is now an emergency pack on a freezing night; a corporate Gala opener is now a paid gig for homeless people finding their feet; and the plants on a networking table are now a permanent fixture of a Sussex nature reserve.
When an organisation aligns its long-term venue relationships with real social legacy and circular design, the event stops being a temporary circus. It becomes an active investment in the city it calls home.
That’s what it means to repurpose with purpose.
Is your annual conference leaving a legacy or just a footprint in your host city? Let’s find its second act: hello@eventcycle.org
