By Mary Tucker | Senior Communications and Content Manager | IAEE

The consensus among industry leaders is that sustainability in our events is no longer optional – it’s essential. Yet tracking environmental impact across complex event portfolios has remained a significant challenge, with many organizations struggling to move beyond unwieldy spreadsheets and fragmented data systems.

That’s exactly why Honeycomb Strategies has earned the IAEE Innovative Business Solution Award for HIVE (Honeycomb Insights for Venues and Events), a groundbreaking platform that’s revolutionizing how the industry approaches sustainability data management. By transforming complex environmental tracking into an intuitive, actionable process, HIVE enables organizations to collect, visualize and act on critical sustainability metrics from energy consumption and waste management to carbon footprint calculations and Net Zero Carbon Events pledge tracking.

What sets HIVE apart is its real-world impact. Already deployed across 30 events spanning three continents with organizations like Diversified Communications, the platform manages data from multiple vendors simultaneously while generating comprehensive insights that drive better decision-making. As a B-Corp certified sustainability leader, Honeycomb Strategies isn’t just creating software – it’s catalyzing industry-wide transformation toward transparency, accountability and meaningful environmental impact.

Honeycomb Strategies was presented the 2025 IAEE Innovative Business Solution Award this past December at Expo! Expo! IAEE’s Annual Meeting & Exhibition in Houston, Texas.

We sat down with Honeycomb Strategies CEO Lindsay Arell who shares the vision behind HIVE, its impact on industry sustainability practices and what the future holds for data-driven environmental leadership in events.

What was the pivotal moment or challenge that inspired Honeycomb Strategies to develop HIVE, and how did you identify that sustainability data management was the critical pain point the industry needed to solve?

Lindsay: The pivotal moment came from years of working directly inside venues and events where teams genuinely wanted to improve sustainability outcomes but were having challenges trying to manage data through spreadsheets, PDFs and disconnected vendor reports or invoices. We repeatedly saw sustainability initiatives stall because the data was too manual and too difficult to translate into impacts to allow for meaningful analysis and decision making.

At the same time, expectations were rising from clients, sponsors, regulators and corporate leadership who were all asking for reporting metrics and transparency, and progress against goals like Net Zero Carbon Events. To meet this need, we decided to develop a dashboard to capture operational data specific to the most material impacts of the events industry. Therefore, HIVE goes beyond carbon calculations to look at qualitative data as well, such as number of volunteer hours, meals donated, etc.

HIVE automatically generates comprehensive carbon footprints from collected inputs. How the platform transforms raw data into actionable insights that organizations can actually use to improve their sustainability outcomes?

Lindsay: The most important thing HIVE does is capture data in the same way that vendors are able to provide the information, then take that information and turn it into a visual tool. We designed it so data collection aligns with how venues and event teams already operate without requiring sustainability expertise at every touchpoint. Once that data is captured, HIVE standardizes it, applies consistent methodologies and visualizes it in ways that is understandable and digestible.

HIVE also allows organizations to see patterns across events, venues, and regions, etc. to identify opportunities and benchmark performance over time. We feel that this is where the real value lies. Teams can prioritize the actions that matter most, whether that’s reducing waste streams, engaging a specific supplier category or understanding where energy efficiency investments will have the biggest return. The platform turns sustainability from a static report into a continuous management tool.

You’re working with major organizations in multiple countries. What have you learned from these implementations about the real barriers organizations face in sustainability tracking, and how has HIVE evolved to address those challenges?

Lindsay: Working globally has shown us that sustainability tracking is shaped not only by the industry and best practices, but also by regulation and cultural norms and priorities. Organizations face very different requirements across regions, from reporting frameworks and waste regulations. Plus, the metric versus imperial systems can make consistent data collection challenging from country to country. Cultural attitudes toward sustainability also vary, influencing how data is prioritized, understood and acted upon.

HIVE was built to handle that complexity and supports regional customization while maintaining a consistent, portfolio-level view, allowing organizations to align global goals with local realities. By meeting teams where they are operationally and culturally, HIVE helps turn sustainability data into a common language rather than a barrier.

As ESG and carbon reporting requirements become standard across industries, how do you see HIVE’s role expanding beyond events and what partnerships or integrations are you most excited about for driving that growth?

Lindsay: While HIVE was purpose-built for events and venues, the challenges it solves are not unique. Many adjacent sectors like destination management, suppliers, general service contractors, hotels and large multi-site operations also have challenges with decentralized and complex data. As ESG and carbon reporting requirements become more standardized, there is a clear opportunity to apply our deep expertise to support these related industries in a more scalable way.

For 2026, we’re especially excited about the integration of AI tools that can streamline data capture, improve data quality and reduce the burden on internal teams. In parallel, our industry partnership with TSNN and IAVM to create Venue Sustainalytics is very exciting. By collaborating to capture consistent sustainability data from venues, we’re helping create a shared, trusted dataset that both organizers and venues can use and begin to establish a common language that supports planning, establishes realistic expectations, and hopefully lead to more meaningful progress across the industry.

Looking ahead, what does success look like for HIVE and for the industry as a whole? How do you envision this platform helping transform sustainability from a compliance checkbox into a genuine driver of environmental and social impact?

Lindsay: For HIVE, success means helping sustainability become operational, measurable and embedded into everyday decision-making. When teams can clearly see how their choices affect energy use, waste, emissions and social outcomes, sustainability stops being reactive and starts informing how events are planned, delivered, and improved year over year. HIVE is successful when it enables organizations to move from reporting what happened to actively shaping initiatives and strategies moving forward.

For the industry as a whole, success looks like a shift from fragmented, one-off sustainability efforts to coordinated, data-informed action. By creating a consistent way to measure and understand impact across venues and events, HIVE supports a more collaborative ecosystem where organizers, venues, and partners are aligned around shared goals and credible data. I believe that when we are all in alignment and speaking the same language, sustainability will evolve into a catalyst for innovation, accountability and long-term change.

The 2026 IAEE Awards Call for Nominations is open! Click here to learn about each category and submit your nominations for deserving colleagues.

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