Event agencies Smyle and Sustainable Events Ltd have joined forces to create a new sustainable events community.

The green forum will exist across live and digital platforms with an aim to support a community “which inspires the continuous development of a global sustainable event industry”.

Launching in mid-October, the community is being led by Sustainable Events managing director Fiona Pelham and co-director Rick Stainton, managing director of Smyle. Both have worked hard to create a more sustainable events industry, with Pelham chairing the international committee writing ISO20121, the new sustainable events standard replacing BS8901, while Stainton was an early adopter of the standard.

The community will fully launch in mid-October and will include key announcements on the format, speakers and founding supporters of a live sustainability summit to be held in London in January 2013. The summit will be supported by agency Seventeen Events.

Stainton said: “This project is the next phase in Smyle’s sustainability journey - we believe that the recent investment and resulting activities by many key brands made 2012 the year sustainability really leapt into the core of event concepts. These experiences across numerous event genres should be harnessed, shared and built upon. This community and its summit aims to inspire this step change across the events industry.”

Pelham added: “Sustainability is integral to the success of a business. This event will not only demonstrate the business case but also provide solutions and a network to enable the UK event industry to show global leadership in sustainability.”