Scottish Event Campus

Throughout 2021, Glasgow’s Scottish Event Campus (SEC) worked in collaboration with its clients and partners as the industry emerged from the global pandemic. At the same time, the venue played host to one of the most significant events to hit the UK, COP26, and with it the chance to create lasting legacies not just for climate change, but for a more sustainable events industry. Under the world’s gaze, the SEC hosted arguably the most important conversation to take place anywhere in the world in 2021.

Before then, the past year saw the SEC transition from being NHS Louisa Jordan hospital, a vaccination centre, and back to the country’s home of events and live experience. The venue team worked in tandem with its industry peers to assist with the safe and effective return of events and its iconic buildings helped to bring brands to life in a setting that organisers felt confident and assured in returning to. At the same time COP26 accelerated many of its own sustainability ambitions, working closely with its catering partners SEC Food, the city of Glasgow, the on-site event partner – Identity – and the client contacts at the UK Government and UNFCCC. A new model was created that is part of a legacy conversation within the industry to create more sustainable events. The outcomes were the creation of the Net Zero Carbon Events initiative, which launched at COP26, and led the SEC to later commit to its own ambition of achieving Net Zero by 2030. Throughout the period, the team at the SEC has been delighted to safely welcome around 700,000 visitors through its doors, with organisers part of a renewed effort to create valuable brand experiences with sustainability at their core.