EuRA Celebrates Sustainability at their 25th Anniversary Conference.
EuRA, the European Relocations Association, is a professional non-profit organisation that promotes relocation and other affiliated services. Their aim is to promote their members who offer immigration, relocation, and relocation services across the world, they provide industry related training, support, networking and advice to all its members.
EuRA has made it their mission to set the standard for innovation and education by empowering their members to unlock their full potential and become leaders in the Global Mobility Industry. Their members are passionate professionals who actively work towards the betterment of the Global Mobility Industry. The Association and its members adhere to their integral ideals of compassion, integrity, teamwork, sustainability, and diversity. Members of EuRA have praised the organisation, and highly value the connections that they have simply by belonging to the association.
EuRA is not only esteemed in and of itself for being a well-established association but is also well known for the lively conferences they host annually to promote and assist in building healthy relationships in the Global Mobility Industry. EuRA members take pleasure in attending these conferences as it offers great opportunities and benefits to the members, as is apparent from the comment made by a member in which they stated, ‘’We can see the creation of friendships and strong personal and business relationships simply because we are part of EuRA.’’ These interactions and connections occur on a global scale, with members arriving from every corner of the continent to represent their company, country, and clients. One could not even begin to imagine the degree to which cultures are mixing and substantial information is being shared.
The purpose of the conference is primarily to outline the highlights of the year that has passed, talk about new trends, benchmark with others in the industry and networking and socialising is a big part of the conference, and everyone who attends certainly has an enjoyable time and leaves the conference with a significantly enhanced knowledge in the field and many business opportunities and new business friends and colleagues. The most recent conference was held in April of this year in Dublin, Ireland. This year was a special occasion as EuRA proudly celebrated their 25th anniversary at the conference by giving tribute to the membership and throwing a formal gala evening.
This year, at the annual EuRA conference, one of the symposiums delivered prior to the official conference start was the Sustainability Symposium, it delved into various aspects of sustainable development, and included a corporate representative to give the members a view from a corporate client’s perspective. Many of the 70 registered members who attended the sustainable development symposium on the Tuesday commented on how insightful it was and how important it is for the information that was conveyed at the symposium, to be not only implemented but also to be passed on and shared. The symposium dived into an in-depth meaning of sustainability, the input from a corporate perspective, and what it means to the global mobility sector. Speakers at the symposium maintained the attention of the audience engaging them in various practical workshops so they could take their learnings back to their businesses. The discussion was open-ended and informative and included a workshop structure which allowed the members to fully immerse into practical applications of the sustainable development concepts shared.
The discussion was centred around meeting the needs of the Global Mobility Industry at present in such a manner that resources are not depleted for future generations, thereby ensuring the longevity of the industry. The notion of sustainability covers three pillars, known as ‘’ESG.’’ These key pillars are Environmental, Social and Governance, and they impact every aspect of life.
Understanding the impact of sustainability is two-fold. It is constituted by the effect that a business has on the ESG issues, as well as the effect that these ESG issues have on the business. In one of the sessions during the sustainability symposium day they looked at “materiality assessments” as a way for the global mobility silo’s specifically, immigration, destination services, temporary accommodation, etc, can review their impact on the sustainable metrics (ESG) and the impact of these same metrics on their business. The group got to experience a specific case study by Graebel to help them understand a practical application of a materiality assessment and then each table attempted to review the process in a workshop environment to give some practical exposure.
It was decided that promoting discussions on this topic is important, as the industry has been facing tremendous pressure as of late, from both clients and governmental regulations, to practice sustainability more efficiently. However, oftentimes, not much thought is given to the fact that doing so has proven to be a lot more costly, and sometimes does not fit the budget of the company. Part of the initiative was also to raise awareness of the fact that corporates sometimes may find it difficult to find the funding to practise sustainability in the ways they would like to, thereby making it extremely hard to achieve and adhere to the requests and regulations. This highlighted the importance of collaboration between each other and more than that “radical collaboration” finding ways to solve some of these problems may require us stepping out of our comfort zone and thinking differently. Working with competitors, government departments, NGO’s to uncover how we can potentially find solutions to this rather large complex problem.
The sustainability symposium equipped members with a template on how to go about achieving sustainability in the workplace by educating them on how to identify and prioritise sustainability issues based on their economic, environmental, and social impacts.
Overall, the Sustainability Symposium was so successful that attendees not only left feeling excited to get started on their new sustainability journey but even requested mini-virtual symposiums throughout the year so that they may continue to learn and help others to be more mindful of their duty to practice sustainability. It starts with everyone. We cannot change the world, but we can change our habits for the sake of a brighter and healthier future for the next generations.
The group who put this together for the members are passionate about the topic Magali Horbert, René Stegmann, and Johan de Kam who also facilitated the day and if you want to reach out to them and also follow EuRA’s journey with the Green Coalition. This is an evolutionary process, and we need you all to help get onto a sustainable journey together.
If you would like to find out more about the Sustainability Symposiums Conference, or how you can practise sustainability by yourself, in your home, or in your workplace, reach out to us or if you want to read more on how to reduce your carbon foot print while traveling click HERE.
