Informa PLC

Environmental & Social Information • Apr 30, 2025

Championing

Sustainability

Sustainability Report 2024

We champion the specialist, connecting people with knowledge to help them learn more, know more and do more.

We deliver:

Live and on-demand events. Specialist content. Academic knowledge services. Networking and partnering platforms. Open research services. Expert research and data. Audience development services. Advanced learning. Accredited training. Digital demand generation services.

To specialists in markets and categories, including:

Pharma, Health & Nutrition, Aviation, Beauty, Infrastructure & Construction, Luxury, Biotech & Life Sciences, Finance, Foodservice, Anti-Ageing & Aesthetics, Lifestyle, Technology.

Our divisions

Informa Markets: transaction-led live and on-demand B2B events

Creates opportunities for customers all over the world to connect, learn and trade. We serve businesses in specialist markets through digital content and data, virtual events and large-scale physical exhibitions.

Informa Connect: content-led live and on-demand B2B events

Delivers branded, content-driven live and on-demand events, digital content and data, allowing year-round connections and knowledge sharing.

Informa Festivals: experience-led B2B events

New business established from 1 January 2025 to showcase the growth and value of experience-led B2B events, characterised by dynamic end-markets, immersive content, community connections, professional development and personal inspiration.

Informa TechTarget: B2B digital services

Helps professionals and businesses in the technology market to connect, learn more and do more. We provide knowledge and connections delivered through training, data and research, consulting and both physical and digital events.

Taylor & Francis: specialist academic research, advanced learning and open research.

Helps academic and research communities discover, learn and make new breakthroughs. We curate and publish high-quality, peer-reviewed research, connecting specialists to knowledge that helps them learn more and advances progress in their field of study and broader society.

Our divisions are underpinned by:

Global Support

This area of our business delivers support to each operating division and comprises Informa's Group functions and Group Operations.

We are absolutely committed to sustainability. It's not just the right thing to do – it also makes us a more successful business.

John Rishton, Chair

Progress on

sustainability

FasterForward is now in its fifth year and, even with significant growth and expansion in our business and the challenges of a global pandemic, we have made great progress towards the ambitious goals we set ourselves for the first phase of the programme, which ends in December 2025. We have hit several of these targets already, but there are some other goals, such as halving our waste, which are particularly stretching given how much the business has grown through the period, the delay in implementing change due to the pandemic and, more generally, the complexity of the supply chain and dependence on third parties. These are not meant to be easy goals though. They are deliberately ambitious to drive change and therefore require continuous focus, effort and adaptability.

This report provides a more detailed update on our progress against each area.

Informa remains fully committed to sustainability because it delivers growth and value to us and to our stakeholders. It's not just the right thing to do – it also makes us a more successful business. Our customers and colleagues want it and we have the opportunity to help lead our industry because of our scale.

We continue to focus on the environmental and societal issues where we can make the biggest difference: reducing carbon emissions, minimising disposable stands, and bringing people together to share knowledge on the creation of more sustainable industries because customers value all of these in our products.

All of this really matters. As a Company, we feel strongly about protecting the environment and about inclusion for everyone. Going back on these commitments would be an own goal.

We need diverse skills, opinions and mindsets to run a successful business. If everyone had the same skills, we wouldn't be able to run a concrete show in Las Vegas or a beauty show in China.

In my view, we can have the biggest impact on the world by bringing people together. As a major player in the B2B events industry, we have a vital role in convening whole industries under one roof to talk about sustainable solutions in their own sectors. In Taylor & Francis, our publications and platforms spread knowledge to people, including those who historically did not have access to it. This includes open access, online platforms, translations and accessibility features. It's all about putting our efforts where we can make a real difference, and this is something that we should all be proud of.

In this report

There are many great stories to tell around Informa's sustainability work this year. Here are a few highlights but we encourage you to read on for more detail.

In conversation with Stephen A. Carter

Group Chief Executive pages 4 and 5

FasterForward intro pages 6 and 7

Moving faster to net zero carbon and waste

Faster to Zero pages 8-17

83%

Reduction in Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions between 2017 and 2024

45,000 stands assessments

We maintained our CarbonNeutral® Company and Publications certifications through emissions reductions and offsetting

Embedding sustainability inside our brands

Sustainability Inside pages 18-29

02

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

17

10

11

12

13

Group Chief Executive

Ben Wielgus, Head of Sustainability, sat down with Stephen A. Carter, Group Chief Executive, to talk about Informa's sustainability programmes

In conversation

with   Stephen A. Carter

B.W. Sustainability has evolved hugely over the last 20 years. In the past, the focus was very much on charitable corporate social responsibility or risk mitigating activities. Now we're seeing a much more mature approach where sustainability makes business better and provides commercial benefits. How do you see the role of sustainability in 2025?

S.C. I fundamentally regard most people as reasonable and well-intentioned: most people, and by extension, most businesses want to do the right thing. In recent years, a lot of businesses have either started the process of bringing in more sustainable practices, or have materially implemented them, not only because it's better for the business, but because it's the right thing to do.

Sustainability programmes provide a framework; a sensible codification of what doing the right thing looks like to help colleagues focus their actions and balance decisions. So much of what we brand as sustainability is actually good business practice. For instance, it's a good idea to reduce pollution, to source energy from renewable sources, to have diverse voices at the table, and to engage customers and suppliers on the agenda. Those frameworks give guidance, so colleagues can balance short-term demands – "I need to make that sale" – with long-term relationship-building and responsible decision making. If you start with belief that people are wellintentioned, you can offer tools that enable them to do that more easily.

B.W. I think you're right. No-one wakes up thinking that they're going to make the world a worse place. Frameworks help give people the tools to find the responsible balance between complementary and competing goals.

In 2025, the first phase of our FasterForward sustainability programme comes to an end. How has FasterForward changed our business?

S.C. One excellent development is that a lot of this thinking has been operationalised – it's not a side-track anymore. I was recently at CPHI Middle East, a major pharma exhibition in Riyadh and had the chance to speak with exhibitors and stand builders during the event build. I was really struck that all of the contractors I spoke to understood about sustainability and knew why I was asking if stands were modular and reusable. This is really relevant to our Better Stands programme and it shows how embedded sustainability is becoming. These practices might not be uniformly adopted across all sectors or regions yet, but everyone is aware of the discussion.

Sustainability has been operationalised – it's not a sidetrack anymore.

B.W. What role does digital play in event sustainability?

S.C. Connecting people and knowledge is a huge part of what we do, but we also connect people to transactions, markets, innovation and ideas. I'm a firm believer in the power of human interaction and the magic that happens when people meet and come together. But certainly, the digital world will become an increasingly important additional component over the next decade, whether that's online communities to keep conversations alive between events or AI as a powerful tool to help people get the most from knowledge and find the right connections.

As a global purveyor of live B2B events in the physical world, we need to think about that and be responsible about the footprint of our events. We're already doing that to a great extent: we have done a fantastic job on reducing disposable stands by rolling out our Better Stands programme, not only in our events but also in the wider industry.

The reason attendees get so much out of our events is because they bring communities of people together to talk about their shared passion, without any sense of awkwardness or need for interpretation. Tapping into that enthusiasm is a strength of the business and attending events always re-ups my belief in the product. It's inspiring to think that various communities are meeting somewhere around the world at an Informa event on almost any given day. But they do expect that those events meet their values – responsibly run, inclusive, high quality, as sustainable as possible.

B.W. People have an increasing number of choices in how they connect and interact, and I think our products need to continue to be exciting and valuable, whilst making sure we remove the things that might put people off attending. This is a watershed moment at Informa as we move towards the second stage of FasterForward.

What's next for Informa and sustainability?

S.C. We've made fantastic progress on sustainability, and we will continue to do more. Looking ahead, we will set new, meaningful, inspiring targets. We need to consider how this will sit as part of our OneInforma initiative which seeks to ensure we get the best from all the fantastic people and businesses we have. I'm excited about what the next period holds, building on the strong sustainability frameworks we've already established. Most people who engage with FasterForward are doing so because they think it's the right thing to do, and as a leader I want to keep facilitating that impulse.

We fundamentally believe in the power of human interaction.

Richard Menzies-Gow Director of IR & Communications, Informa Group, London

At Informa, we see sustainability as both the right thing to pursue, but also as a business opportunity. In both these respects, I'm delighted to report that we continued to make great progress through 2024.

We further reduced emissions, we accelerated the rollout of our Better Stands and Fundamentals programmes designed to make our events more sustainable, we connected hundreds of thousands of people to networks and knowledge that they would not otherwise have been able to access and we made significant charitable and economic contributions to our communities.

The FasterFoward sustainability targets we set back in 2020 were rightly challenging, but we have made great progress towards them, even with the inevitable delays caused by the pandemic.

Informa is also a bigger business than it was in 2020, having added a number of businesses and brands to the portfolio. For example, in 2023 we acquired Tarsus, Winsight and HIMSS, and in late October 2024, we completed the addition of Ascential and TechTarget. This expansion is enabling us to have even greater impact over more events and communities, and our teams adapt quickly to introduce new colleagues to our sustainability programmes. It is always gratifying to see new teams benefit from our experience and the structures we already have in place, and then apply them to make their own events more sustainable.

The downside to Informa's continuous evolution and expansion is that our targets keep moving! This is a good problem to have but creates some challenges with measuring progress and is the reason we are currently updating our science-based emissions targets, which now need to take into account recent acquisitions.

Further details about our progress against our FasterForward commitments are included in this report.

Some of these targets may complete in 2025, but that doesn't mean the end of our sustainability ambitions. Far from it. At Informa, we're always looking forward and thinking about how we can improve further. In 2024 we started planning the next phase of our sustainability programme. To this end, we undertook a double materiality assessment, the output of which will also be used to comply with the EU's Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) should we still be required to pending changes being made by the EU. We have established a governance framework for this and are confident we have the right policies and procedures in place to report on our most material impacts, risks and opportunities.

As we expand and grow, we are well-placed to take advantage of commercial opportunities related to sustainability. One of the unique qualities of our business is that we regularly connect with specialists in many different markets and provide platforms and insights that help these markets accelerate their own sustainability transformation. This is part of the value we provide to our customers, whether through dedicated events and publications on sustainability topics or as content embedded within our major brands.

8

Moving faster to become a zero waste and net zero carbon business.

To help meet the urgent challenges of a changing world, we are moving faster to reduce our carbon and waste footprint, with the aim of becoming a zero waste and net zero carbon business by 2030.

Wherever we can, we will also actively help our partners, customers and wider markets to achieve the same.

Our commitments

• 1 Become carbon neutral as a business and across our products by 2025
  • See more on pages 08-13
• 2 Halve the waste generated through our products and events by 2025
  • See more on pages 14-17
• 3 Become zero waste and net zero carbon by 2030 or earlier
  • See more on pages 08-17

Embedding sustainability inside every one of our brands to help our customers accelerate sustainable development in their specialist markets.

Informa exists to connect people with knowledge, and our greatest impact in the world is through the content and connections we deliver for our customers.

To help our customers go faster, and to accelerate the sustainable progress of the specialist markets we serve, we are embedding relevant sustainability content inside each of our brands.

Whether it's through events, intelligence, research or training, we provide our customers with the content and connections that can drive a more sustainable future for their specialist markets.

Our commitments

• 4 Embed Sustainability Inside 100% of our brands by 2025 See more on pages 18-29
• 5 Help and promote the achievement of the UN's Sustainable Development Goals through our brands See more on pages 18-29

Multiplying the positive impact we can create when we improve access to knowledge, help people connect more efficiently and invest in our communities.

Through the content we provide, we can help connect and inform those who struggle to access knowledge and networks.

When they connect at our events and online, we can help customers be even smarter and more efficient with their time and travel.

Where we work in a specialist or local community, we can partner with them and invest in ways that help them succeed and create more positive impacts in turn.

Our commitments

• 6 Enable one million disconnected people to access networks and knowledge by 2025
  • See more on pages 30-33
• 7 Contribute \$5bn per year in value for our host cities by 2025
  • See more on pages 34-35
• 8 Contribute value of at least 1% of profit before tax to community groups by 2025
  • See more on pages 36-39
• 9 Save customers more carbon than we emit as a business by 2025
  • See more on pages 40-41

Our roadmap to Net Zero

As we work towards our science-based targets and net zero ambition, we have made strong progress in reducing our emissions.

Our first focus is always on reducing emissions from our business and products. We're supporting our value chain partners to decarbonise, particularly through industry collaborations, and progress is strong. Where we can't yet make reductions, we invest in high-quality, third-party certified carbon offsets which also provide social and environmental co-benefits for local communities.

Commitments

Become a carbon neutral business and across our products by 2025

3

Become net zero carbon by 2030 or earlier

Progress highlights

On track to meet our science-based targets and have achieved carbon neutral certification for the company and publications.

83%

reduction in Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions between 2017 and 2024

We maintained our CarbonNeutral® Company certification

A- rating obtained from CDP, the world's leading climate change benchmark

76/100 score achieved in the Environmental dimension of the 2024 S&P Global Corporate Sustainability Assessment

events accredited in 2024 through our sustainable event Fundamentals framework, which includes reducing emissions

All physical books and journals from Taylor & Francis recertified as CarbonNeutral® Publications

Sourced renewable electricity usage for 96% of offices by consumption and 88% of events by attendees

Played a key role in developing the Net Zero Carbon Events Initiative, which now has more than 730 members

Next steps

• Publish a detailed net zero transition plan
• Revise our baselines and science-based targets to incorporate recent acquisitions
• Complete measuring emissions from all our digital products
• Expand our range of carbon neutral products
• Continue our supplier engagement
• Work with peers to deliver on the Net Zero Carbon Events Initiative

Relevant SDG

Strong progress against our climate targets

		Target	Progress	Target year
	Science-based	55% reduction in scope 1 and 2 emissions	83% reduction achieved
targets		20% reduction in scope 3 emissions	3%* reduction achieved	2030
	* Reduction in spite of significant portfolio expansion. The baseline will be reset to take account of acquisitions in 2025, enabling a true assessment of reduction.
		CarbonNeutral® Company	100% achieved	2025
	FasterForward	CarbonNeutral® physical T&F publications	100% achieved
		CarbonNeutral® events	30+ events are offsetting emissions as a stepping stone to full carbon neutral certification
		Carbon neutral digital products	Improving measurement through DIMPACT
		Net zero	Developing more detailed net zero transition plan	2030
	Key programmes 2018-2024 Key programmes 2025
Scope 1 & 2 emissions		• Purchased renewable electricity for over 95% of offices since 2019 • Consolidated office space • Purchased certified, high-quality carbon offsets	• Continue moving to renewable electricity in offices and reduce generator fuel consumption • Continue to purchase certified offsets
Scope 3 emissions		• Operating the Fundamentals, Accelerator and Better Stands programmes to reduce our events' emissions • T&F expanded into digital publications and print on demand	• Continue to roll out our key programmes at our events including recent acquisitions • Engage with our supply chain • Develop long-term science-based net zero target and net zero transition plan

Using offsets to mitigate some unavoidable GHG emissions

Our focus is on reducing the emissions from our business and products. But some emissions are difficult to reduce – in particular, emissions in our supply chains. While we continue to support our value chain partners to decarbonise, we know this takes time. To help mitigate these emissions, we buy high-quality, third-party certified offsets, which also provide social or environmental co-benefits for local communities.

Read more online

Training colleagues in sustainability

We regularly run training for colleagues on Better Stands and our Fundamentals programmes. Better Stands helps reduce the energy used to transport exhibition stands and the waste generated by our events. Through the Fundamentals, we show colleagues how to work with venues to reduce energy consumption during our events. We updated our onboarding programme for new joiners to include a session on our sustainability programmes.

80+

Fundamentals and Better Stands training sessions in 2024

~2,300

colleagues trained on sustainability in 2024

Scope 1 emissions

We've consolidated our office space and moved to newer, more energy efficient offices in several key locations around the world. This has helped reduce emissions from natural gas and refrigerants by 41% since 2017 (our baseline year for our science-based targets).

As we've expanded in countries where the events industry is newer and infrastructure is being fully developed, we sometimes need to use additional electricity generators. This has resulted in an increase in emissions from fuel consumption and we're actively engaging with our suppliers to find solutions.

Scope 2 emissions

We continue to find ways to make our offices more energy efficient and 96% of our offices' electricity usage comes from renewable sources. We use an established global process to purchase Energy Attribution Certificates (EACs) from renewable electricity producers. This allows us to match electricity usage with certificated renewable electricity generation and creates additional incentives for power generation companies to invest in renewable power given that our shared offices are generally not suitable for self-generation.

41%

decrease in emissions from natural gas and refrigerants since 2017

96%

of our offices' electricity usage comes from renewable sources

Scope 3 emissions from events

We've assessed the largest sources of emissions in our supply chain in the delivery of live events. These come from the choice by exhibitors to use single use exhibition stands, from event logistics and from energy and waste at the venue itself. We've put in place two key programmes to address these sources of emissions: the Fundamentals (see pages 42-45) and Better Stands (see pages 15-17).

In 2024, 431 events were accredited in our Sustainable Event Fundamentals. We also purchased renewable electricity for venues where possible. The choice by exhibitors to use disposable stands at events has long been a major opportunity to improve the waste and emissions for the events industry. In 2020, after three years of pilots and testing, we launched our Better Stands initiative to stop the use of single use exhibition stands and we're now working with more than 15 other organisers who agreed to join the programme, as shared later in this report.

We also know that the carbon footprint of attendee travel and accommodation from the event is significant and we have a separate programme to engage on that given it's outside the scope of our Science Based Targets. See FasterForward Goal 9 (pages 40-41) for more on this.

88%

of our events were powered by renewable energy

In 2024, 39 events from our Informa Connect Life Sciences portfolio, as well as our Greenbuild and IM Power events, offset their emissions. They started by using less energy and resources, purchasing renewable electricity and working with suppliers to be more efficient. We purchased verified carbon offsets to mitigate the emissions that couldn't be eliminated, in particular from event logistics, attendee hotel rooms and travel.

431

events were accredited as part of the Sustainable Event Fundamentals

Scope 3 emissions from physical books and journals

Our digital first approach to publishing means that these emissions are much lower than in the past.

We've increased the use of print on demand services to better match production with demand and reduce physical stock levels.

It has also expanded opportunities for customers and resellers to self-print to eliminate printing to stock and transportation.

We've also implemented a programme to remove plastic packaging and lamination when customers choose printed journals. This now covers nearly 89% of our products.

Some unused book stock is inevitable. To avoid waste and share knowledge more widely, we've donated this unused stock to BookAid and Amnesty International.

Remaining carbon emissions from our printed products and supply chain are calculated and compensated for through the purchase of high-quality certified carbon offsets.

Scope 3 emissions from digital products

This year, to improve our understanding of Informa's digital carbon footprint, we've continued to work with researchers and in-situ teams to refine the DIMPACT model. DIMPACT is a collaboration between more than 20 digital media businesses that we helped found. Our membership means we can leverage the tool in many ways: inspiring others; developing common tools; improving our reporting and finding ways to work together to drive change.

Our digital event footprint team has made significant progress, completing a detailed case study this year and starting to work on scaling the results to Informa-wide digital services.

While our work on both digital footprints and events has shown us that Informa's digital footprint is low, there is still opportunity to understand and improve how to engage with our users, whose devices represent the bulk of our digital carbon footprint. We also need to further understand the emerging energy use of AI tools as we embed these further in our products.

Other ways we reduce our scope 3 emissions

Purchased goods and services, and capital goods

We are working with our procurement and operations teams to engage with our top suppliers to measure our supply chain emissions more accurately, including programmes to share our knowledge with venues, printers and other contractors on sustainability. We are asking our suppliers to join us in moving to renewable energy and reduce carbon in line with programmes such as the Net Zero Carbon Events Initiative.

Business travel

We are encouraging efficient travel for our colleagues and work with travel partners to promote more sustainable hotel and travel choices. Where appropriate, we suggest digital alternatives. We compensate all emissions from travel using high-quality, certified carbon offsets.

Employee commuting and home working

Informa has a balanced working model. Our commuting emissions have decreased as colleagues come to the office less frequently overall. However, homeworking emissions have increased.

Reducing waste

To reach our goals of halving our waste by 2025 and becoming a zero-waste business by 2030, we have focused on the most significant source of waste in our operations: the waste generated at our events, in particular from exhibitors' choice to use single use stands.

We're also working with our printers, event venues, landlords and other partners to tackle waste in our value chain as, being an office-based company, waste from our direct operations is small. We choose to focus on the much larger waste streams in our supply chain and recognise that this is challenging, takes time and is essential to achieving our goals.

Commitments

Halve the waste generated through our products and events by 2025

3

Become net zero carbon by 2030 or earlier

Progress highlights

We founded an industry alliance to tackle the main source of waste and made strong progress internally.

390

events participating in our Better Stands programme, with more than 170 having completed a detailed assessment in 2024 – more than double 2023's number

45,000

stands assessed for reusability under Better Stands in 2024

20

other exhibitions organisers are piloting Better Stands and help support industry-wide change

431

sustainable events assessments in 2024, working with venues and suppliers to reduce waste at events, addressing waste created by our carpet, signage, catering and lanyards

35%

reduction in pulping waste since 2017

89%

of journal titles removed polywrap plastic covers

Next steps

• Continue to deploy our Better Stands programme globally, working with other partners to reach an industry tipping point
• Engage with supply chain to reduce food waste and improve recycling at venues
• Continue work in T&F to reduce waste and packaging
• Continue to explore the feasibility of carpet-free events and permanent flooring

Relevant SDG

The Better Stands programme aims to unite and encourage exhibitors and their appointed contractors to move away from disposable, single use stands at events, in favour of reusable structures. These are safer, faster, often more cost effective and create less waste whilst still looking exciting.

Disposable stands are typically constructed from raw materials on-site which are then demolished post show and either sent to landfill or burnt for energy. The Better Stands framework enables stands to be assessed based on their reusability, rating them as disposable, Bronze, Silver or Gold. This allows us to track progress and to engage and reward our exhibitors and their contractors who choose to build reusable stands.

	Category	Items	Disposable	Bronze	Silver	Gold
Reused	Stand structure and walls	Structure or framework of the stand, walls, panels for meeting rooms, backdrop
	Platform or raised flooring	Structure of flooring (excluding surface covering, e.g. carpet)
	Furniture and equipment	Showcases, counters, chairs, tables, sofa, coffee table, flyer stand, LED walls, TV, AV equipment etc.
	Lighting	All kinds of lighting in the stand and within showcases
	Fascia and overhead signage	Overhead signage or branding, fascia, company logo on top of the stand structure
	Rigged structure	Any rigged structure including lighting gantries or other structural elements
	Ceiling	Any form of ceiling, e.g. fabric ceiling, solid ceilings for lighting or stand support
	Display facilities	Built-in or detachable product display cabinets, lightboxes etc.
Reused or recycled	Floor covering	Carpet, floor tiles, HDF-coverings, lino etc.
	Graphics and decorative items	Stand graphics that are wall-mounted or floor-standing (not overhead) and any other decorative items such as plants and flowers, models and ornaments

55% increase in events implementing Better Stands

increase in events confirming Bronze-level stands

Lucille Ryan Senior Sustainability Manager, Informa Group, London

4

times the number of stands being assessed by Informa from 2023: 9,000; 2024: 45,000

$$20$$

organisers globally, alongside 9 service providers and 2 industry associations, are working to implement Better Stands

2024 has seen a huge growth in the scale of Better Stand's momentum, both internally and across the industry.

For our events who are in their second or third year of implementing Better Stands, we have seen a significant reduction in the number of disposable stands being used. These events have gone through the process of: gathering baseline data; developing a bespoke plan to engage change; campaigning to increase engagement; delivering initiatives; gathering performance data; and analysing their progress.

A key part of this has been developing and testing the effectiveness of different methods to help influence the choices being made by our exhibitors when selecting their stand build. The stories in the following pages highlight ways in which our events are successfully sparking change.

Better Stands: delivering clear results

Milan

CPHI Milan

Natasja O'Connor, Group Operations Director & Silvia Forroova, Partnerships and Sustainability Director, Informa Markets, Amsterdam

At CPHI Milan, a key component to our education, encouragement, and conversations with exhibitors and contractors on the Better Stands programme has been the issuing of certificates after the event. Each contractor and exhibitor receives a communication telling them how they have rated in the Better Stands Assessment that took place onsite. Stands that were rated as Bronze, Silver or Gold received a certificate to celebrate their achievement.

Through this we have succeeded in seeing significant changes in the choices our exhibitors and customers are making in regards to their stand builds, delivering a 12% reduction in disposable stands compared to last year.

Hospitalar

Anabela Gomes, Operations Director & Herbert Kanashiro, Sustainability Coordinator, Informa Markets, São Paulo

At our events we have been engaging our exhibitors with Better Stands through a focus on what the benefits are for them. We have done this through creating videos for social media, Better Stands sections to our websites, embedding it into our exhibitor onboarding processes, as well as Better Stands showcase stands at our events.

One of the most impactful method of engagement has been handing out the results of our Better Stands Assessments in the form of stickers during the event, which exhibitors can then proudly display on their stand. At Hospitalar, the feedback has been incredible, with one exhibitor's team being so pleased with their rating, they even made a song about it for social media.

By making such a visible praise of our stands which are Bronze, Silver or Gold, we have enticed our exhibitors to be asking us "how do I get a Better Stands sticker?" or "how can I get a higher rating next year?". This is leading them to make the changes we are hoping to drive through Better Stands.

São Paulo

Jewellery and Gem Asia

Hong Kong

Jordan Chan, Senior Operations Manager, Informa Markets, Hong Kong

At Jewellery and Gem Asia in Hong Kong, our team used multiple initiatives to increase the number of reusable stands from 78% in 2023 to 92% this year, creating positive impact in the industry and portfolio, and reducing waste by 7 tonnes for the event. We emphasised the importance of Better Stands from the early planning stages with pre-event communications and online compulsory briefings with official contractors. At the event, we placed additional focus on-site evaluation and reflection to stakeholders. Further, post-event notifications ensured our determination on the initiative was reiterated and will create further positive impact in years to come.

Reducing waste in Shanghai

Joanna Bao, Operations Director, Informa Markets, Shanghai

Since 2001, the International Children Baby and Maternity Products Industry Expo (CBME China) has been showcasing products and support services across the supply chain. These include products such as pushchairs, car seats, furniture, food, toys, clothing, shoes and related services. It's a major event that attracted over 100,000 attendees and 2,900 exhibitors, building more than 270,000 m2 of space in 2024. My team at CBME set ourselves an ambitious goal: significantly reduce the waste generated at the event by reducing the number of disposable stands. To do this, the team offered 20 different Better Stands packages to encourage exhibitors to move to reusable stands by making it easier and more attractive. The results blew everyone away, with more than 240 exhibitors making the switch. Overall, in 2024, 41% of the exhibition space was occupied by Better Stands and Bronze-level special-design booths. Our team also embedded waste reduction activities into event regulations. Two key measures were increasing the minimum raw space requirement to 37 m2 and banning the use of nonrecyclable carpets and PVC floors for exhibition gangways, reducing debris and improving the efficiency of breakdown.

Shanghai

Embedding sustainability

Our most significant impact on the world comes from our content and our role in connecting people with the knowledge and networks they need to solve their big challenges. This is also a key business opportunity for Informa. By embedding sustainability content in our products, we can help the markets we serve to become more sustainable and contribute to the UN SDGs.

Some of our brands, such as The Green Expo and Greenbuild, are dedicated to sustainable solutions, while many other brands produce a significant amount of content exploring the sustainability issues most important to their markets. Some have zones of their show floor dedicated to specific topics whilst others create conversations around solving industry challenges. Since we launched FasterForward, we've seen this focus on sustainability content grow across our brands.

Commitments

4 Embed Sustainability Inside 100% of our brands by 2025

5

Help and promote the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through our brands

Progress highlights

On-going progress to gradually increase sustainability content in our products.

63%

of our top 100 brands have met the most demanding level of Sustainability Inside

87%

of events, out of 431, have started to embed some level of sustainability content inside their products

28,000

book chapters or journals articles in Taylor & Francis' SDG Online collection

2,940

Taylor & Francis books published linked to at least one of the SDGs

47,470

Taylor & Francis journal articles published linked to at least one of the SDGs

Calculated our weighted contributions to the SDGs from our content and our operations (see chart opposite)

Next steps

• Continue working with brands to embed Sustainability Inside across our content
• Measure and grow the commercial value from this content
• Develop improved methods to measure the impact of this content on our markets and products

What do we mean by Sustainability Inside?

We go through a rigorous process to determine which brands have achieved Sustainability Inside. In our events business, for example, we'd expect a whole conference track, zone or education space dedicated to sustainability. This means that not all our brands have achieved Sustainability Inside yet, but almost all feature some sustainability content and are building on it.

Progress is tracked through the Fundamentals (pages 42-45) for events and third-party AI driven analysis of our Taylor & Francis products by a third-party.

How our content and networks contribute to the UN SDGs

By enabling connections and access to specialist knowledge, we believe we make the biggest contributions to SDGs 4 and 17:

SDG 4 contribution

Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all.

Our purpose is to champion the specialist. At its heart, this means connecting people with high-quality knowledge. The better we do this, the more value we create for others and ourselves. Our FasterForward goals of embedding Sustainability Inside all our brands together with our Impact Multiplier goal of connecting one million disconnected people with the knowledge they need to succeed, contributes to SDG 4, as well as the wider sustainable development agenda.

SDG 17 contribution

Strengthen the means of implementation and revitalise the global partnership for sustainable development.

We create efficient ways to generate millions of connections between specialists and knowledge every year, as well as meeting spaces for collaboration. This helps our customers learn from each other, as well as form and sustain the partnerships needed to foster sustainable development in their markets.

SupplySide West

Creatively addressing sustainability and nutrition

Through our content, SupplySide grows the health and nutrition industry and creates more health for more people.

Sandy Almendarez Vice President, Content – SupplySide, Informa Markets, Phoenix

At SupplySide West 2024, we advocated for the sustainable development of the industry through over 135 hours of education. The content we produce is broad ranging, looking at challenges to the industry, insights and trends, market movements, professional development and innovation. Thanks to a survey, we identified the top sustainability concerns and opportunities in the industry. This allowed us to better tell a full-picture story of how SupplySide is addressing these challenges, how we are supporting the SDGs, and how our attendees could get involved and learn through our content.

For example, at the Path to Sustainability guided tour, participants attended in-depth explorations of exhibitors and show features that promote sustainability in the industry. Stops included organic botanical suppliers that support Indian female farmers, specialised ingredients from carbon neutral manufacturing facilities and omega-3s

Completing the SupplySide Fresh programme has been an amazing learning experience! As a newcomer, the in-depth courses and networking opportunities have equipped me with invaluable skills and insights to thrive in the nutrition industry. The industry experts and programme co-ordinators were incredibly supportive of my journey and made the experience more enriching. I'm proud to be the first to complete this programme, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking to kick-start their career in this field!

Erica Quang, R&D Specialist, ChildLife Essentials

sourced from sustainable herring stock. The tour completed at the Sustainability Zone, a brand-new feature that showcased the sustainability efforts of SupplySide, as well as the Sustainable Packaging Showcase that featured over a dozen unique sustainable packaging solutions from both suppliers and finished product manufacturers in the industry, at no cost to them. We also held a social hour for the sustainable packaging enthusiasts to get together and discuss this issue.

Something I'm particularly proud of is our partnerships with different non-profit organisations.

A new feature this year

One of the best things about my role is the ability to bring people together. SupplySide Fresh, launched in August 2024, is a groundbreaking initiative designed to empower newcomers to the health and nutrition industry. By leveraging the expertise of industry veterans and innovative educational platforms, this programme provides essential knowledge and practical skills to help individuals thrive in this dynamic field. The programme offers a curated selection of educational modules covering a wide range of topics, including regulatory compliance, clinical research, technology trends and strategic partnerships. SupplySide Fresh has partnered with renowned industry experts to provide valuable insights and guidance to participants. The programme's self-paced format allows participants to learn at their own convenience, making it accessible to individuals with busy schedules.

It's been exciting to see our industry address sustainability issues and support healthy nutrition. Through our content, we'll continue this work.

Relevant SDG

Creating a global hub for sustainability education

Sarah Palmer Brand Director, Informa Connect, London

GESS Dubai is the leading education conference and exhibition in the Middle East region, which for 18 years has showcased cutting-edge products and innovative solutions for today's classrooms.

Last November, over 7,000 education professionals from 98 countries gathered in Dubai to network, attend free conferences and interactive workshops, and celebrate excellence in education.

One of our six areas of focus is sustainability and wellbeing in education. Over three days, attendees learned about topics that included climate education, the wellbeing and mental health of both staff and children, safeguarding, inclusion and diversity, and embedding sustainability in curriculums. Over the years, we have also increased our coverage of special needs education, a topic that was not openly discussed in the region until recently.

Focusing on these topics helps us support educators to bring sustainability practices to their schools, and sustainability content to their children.

Relevant SDG

Our education topics

Climate education

Wellbeing and mental health of both staff and children

Safeguarding

Inclusion and diversity

Embedding sustainability in curriculums

Informa Sustainability Report 2024 21

Advocating for a more sustainable IT industry

Canalys has been delivering market analysis and custom solutions to technology vendors worldwide for 25 years. Its research covers emerging, enterprise, mobile and smart technologies.

Elsa Nightingale Principal ESG Analyst, Informa TechTarget, UK

I lead Canalys' research on sustainable ecosystems. Our dedicated sustainability team aims to guide and connect the industry's largest IT companies to address ESG challenges.

We do this by: Engaging Audiences, Empowering Companies, Driving Research and Advocacy and Advancing Industry Standards.

It really inspires me that, through our research, advocacy, and partnerships, by serving as a bridge to over 650,000 partners in the IT ecosystem, I believe we are working to shape the future of sustainable IT overall.

Relevant SDG

Engaging Audiences

We delivered impactful presentations, data and market insights on ESG best practices at Canalys events. In 2023 and 2024 alone, we reached almost 3,000 attendees.

3,000

attendees

Empowering Companies

The Alys sustainability assessment tool provides instantaneous and tailored recommendations to help channel partners make ESG improvements, and assess their existing maturity. Designed by Canalys, it's offered freely to channel partners. This is particularly helpful for small and medium IT partners – where resources for sustainability are often constrained.

Driving Research and Advocacy

We have published more than 250 reports, articles and toolkits on sustainability – reaching thousands of IT professionals and generating significant media coverage. Our flagship Sustainability Survey provides the industry with an annual temperature test on IT ESG, as well as clear, actionable outcomes.

reports, articles and toolkits on sustainability

Advancing Industry Standards

By advising over 15 of the largest IT vendors worldwide on ESG and serving as a bridge to over 650,000 partners in the IT ecosystem, we are working to shape the future of IT overall.

partners in the IT ecosystem served

Encouraging design that's good for the planet

Decor + Design positioned itself as a leading sustainable force in the Australian design industry.

Chris May Exhibition Director, Informa Connect, Sydney

Decor + Design, Australia's number one interiors trade event celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2024 with the theme of Evolution. Over 10,000 design trade visitors attended over three days at Melbourne Exhibition Centre. Along with a mix of heritage and emerging brands, we launched a new co-located Green Design Show (GDS) in partnership with the Green Building Council of Australia.

The new GDS showcased sustainable furniture, products and materials and provided education and the latest information on government legislation. It is governed by a set of Sustainability Guidelines curated by Circular Design Thinking.

We introduced new Green Design Seminars with the support and contribution of key industry players, positioning the event as a leading provider of education about design that is good for planet and society. Both the Seminar Series and GDS attracted significant media interest. We also formed ongoing partnerships with Green Magazine and The Design Files, as well as with charitable organisations such as CERES, a nonprofit advocacy organization working to accelerate the transition to a cleaner, more just, and sustainable economy.

We did all this while fulfilling stringent sustainability criteria: products must be Australian made and exhibitors need to consider how goods are transported to the event, as well as providing data on the lifecycle of them. We worked closely with an independent consultant, Circular Design Thinking, to ensure total transparency and avoid greenwashing.

What was particularly encouraging to see was that the Green Design Show elevated the whole Decor + Design event by attracting an entirely new audience. It also helped attract heavyweight new partners including the Green Building Council of Australia, Green Magazine and the Design Institute of Australia.

Relevant SDG

Medic West Africa 2024

Improving access to healthcare knowledge in Africa

Rubina D'Souza Senior Conference Producer, Informa Markets, Dubai

In West Africa, where healthcare resources are often stretched thin, knowledge sharing is a powerful tool for improving patients' health. At Medic West Africa, we aim to bridge this gap by offering healthcare professionals free access to high-quality educational content, aligning with the UN's SDG 3 – ensuring healthy lives and promoting well-being for all ages.

This year, through partnerships with nine local and global associations and non-profits, we delivered 10 tracks of workshops and conferences—all free of charge. Removing financial barriers meant that healthcare workers could access critical education that will enhance care delivery throughout the region.

For many healthcare professionals in West Africa, access to advanced training is limited. By gathering over 68 expert speakers and engaging more than 800 unique delegates over three days, we addressed essential topics such as emergency care, quality management, sustainable healthcare, and universal health coverage.

A standout collaboration was with the Women in Healthcare Network where we hosted the "POW(H)ER CONNECT: Building Bridges, Breaking Barriers" forum. This initiative focused on inclusivity and empowerment, offering female leaders a platform to exchange insights and experiences. That in turn helps us contribute to gender equality (SDG 5) and improved healthcare outcomes.

I feel that our commitment to providing accessible, expert-led education and fostering collaboration is a step towards a stronger, more resilient healthcare system in the region. This is incredibly rewarding to work on, and we're all looking forward to expanding this impact and continuing to build a more equitable healthcare landscape.

Relevant SDG

How plants breathed new life into a major fintech expo

Operations Manager, Informa Festivals, UK

At Money20/20, the stars of the global fintech world come together. Our challenge was to satisfy their appetite for innovation in a sustainable way.

Money20/20 is all about fast-moving ideas and companies, and this dynamic atmosphere is reflected in the way we design the shows. Delegates expect new and unusual experiences. Our goal is to look for new and creative ways to deliver the same standard of innovation, while keeping sustainability firmly in mind. Operational teams worked hard to align initiatives with the show's priorities and brand.

The perfect example was the 'Na.i.ture Stage' at Money20/20 Europe 2024, which was built from over 1,400 live plants. The stage was one of the most popular at the show, not only for the beautiful aesthetic but for the unique atmosphere created by this abundance of live plants. In building the stage, we used a circular approach to materials. The plants were carefully transported to a greenhouse after the show, before being used again at other events. This was a great example of how sustainability can actually enhance the delegate experience.

We're working hard to reduce the amount of single use materials at our shows, and to this end conducted an audit of signage across all our Money20/20 shows. This identified opportunities to re-use signage, increase digital displays, and implement core design elements that can be re-used each year.

In 2025 we'll build on this work, elevating the delegate experience while reducing our environmental impact.

Inspiring FinTech with the world's best female speakers

26

Adela Knox Brand Strategy Director, Informa Festivals, London

Finovate is the heartbeat of fintech ecosystem, it serves as a platform where industry leaders, innovators and visionaries across banking and fintech come together to connect, collaborate, share business-critical insights and ground-breaking ideas. Finovate is where the future of finance gets shaped.

Historically, the financial technology industry has been dominated by men – women make up just 29% of the tech workforce, according to a 2023 report by female technologist advocacy group AnitaB.org. However, research consistently shows that diverse teams outperform homogeneous ones and are better equipped to identify opportunities, mitigate risks, and devise comprehensive solutions. By showcasing diverse role models and amplifying female voices, conferences can help to break down stereotypes, challenge gender biases, and create more inclusive environments where everyone feels welcome and valued.

Diversity is not just a concept at Finovate; it is our core guiding principle. Our collaborations with various industry groups and associations (Women in Fintech, Women in Banking and Finance, Young Black Professionals to name but few), and local fintech communities highlight our steadfast commitment to inclusivity. Initiatives like the Rising Stars in Banking Meetup and demo scholarship winners demonstrate our dedication to celebrating diversity in all its dimensions.

I'm really pleased with the progress we've made in giving women a platform in a male-dominated sector and look forward to hearing more from great female voices in the years to come.

Finovate is proud to champion diversity and inclusion across the money ecosystem and our speaker panel reflects our efforts featuring a balanced 50/50 male-female speaker ratio to ensure diverse voices are heard at all three Finovate events. Recently, our work in this area was showcased live at Finovate Europe during an all women panel. The panel centred around driving gender equality for all through Fintech platforms and was spotlighted in Forbes.

We've come a long way. I am passionate about this topic and it's wonderful to see how the whole team has embraced the DEI challenge. We all consider it a core part of our job to promote inclusivity and champion new and diverse voices in the industry. Changing the status quo requires us all to dig much deeper, aspiring to do better.

From the moment we start planning the event, we are crafting an epic narrative of sustainability, innovation, and inclusivity. We do a lot of research to identify diverse professionals in banking & fintech, brief our partners on our efforts to unlock new opportunities, inspire future leaders, and pave the way for a more equitable future by embracing diversity, seeking their support and buy-in.

Through our Demo Scholarship Programme, we showcase underrepresented founders and startups (including womenled companies) tackling climate change, diversity, and financial inclusion. Over 50% have a female CEO, co-founder or speaker. A company's diversity is weighted as part of the selection process.

As a team we navigate towards a brighter, more inclusive future for fintech as according to a recent study by Cambridge University 87% of fintech companies lack a female founder or co-founder, and only 4% have women in leadership roles. In fintech, where diversity is critical for innovation and success, companies must prioritise creating inclusive teams and Finovate is here to support this industry shift.

Read more on empowering women in Fintech

Changing the world has never tasted so good

Jenna Fitch Senior Director, Community & Conference Content, Informa Markets, Boulder

Shall we pioneer something new to address the fate of our fields, farmers and food? This was the mindset our team adopted as we leaned into the development of Newtopia Now, a new event designed to foster deep connections, equitable product discovery, market expansion, and impactful learning opportunities for the organic and natural products industry.

To support a fledgling community of 'Newtopians'—purposedriven natural and organic products buyers, brands, food producers and everyone in between—we needed to create a memorable experience that would provide an opportunity to work together on challenges at both a local and global scale. To achieve this, we set out to create a brand new, experiential event to foster relationship building, joy and storytelling at the event.

In an age of social isolation, misinformation and 24/7 news cycles, a time when we increasingly hear individuals say they feel alone and powerless to solve global environmental and social crises, event organisers are uniquely capable of bringing individuals together to solve systemic challenges and innovate within unique markets.

As event hosts and content experts at Informa, our deep understanding of specialist markets makes it possible for us to curate unique community-focused experiences for attendees.

At Newtopia Now, this took the shape of four unique 'dinearound' experiences that purchased from local food producers and restaurants while also bringing together highly curated exhibitors and buyers. The format inspired meaningful connection and gave diverse voices and perspectives a seat at the table.

I love that you brought us all together.... I learned a lot from everyone...It makes me wonder if there is a way to organically build on this group ... so that we can all share ideas and our thought leadership around sustainability. This is an important time in the industry as we emerge from a multiyear challenging time into what I predict will be a period of accelerating growth and attraction of growth capital. Sustainability is a consistent "rising tide" for all brands. The more of us there are that talk about this, sharing the wisdom of each other more broadly across the industry, the more we will see brands incorporating sustainability into their business plans.... and the more impact the industry will make. The knowledge base of this group is humbling and inspiring.

Nick McCoy, Managing Director & Co-Founder, Whipstitch Capital (Regenerate Dine-Around Attendee)

Our dine-arounds also created unparalleled opportunities for exhibitors, investors, and buyers to develop a deeper understanding of and commitment to each other off the tradeshow floor. For me, and many of my team, Newtopia Now was a tremendously humbling experience and one that reinforced the importance of the work we do within our specialist market. Our team raised a toast during one of the dine-arounds in gratitude to the attendees and their contributions to the industry. In return, our long-time partner and co-founder of Kiss the Ground, Finian Makepeace, stood up, flipped the script, and thanked OUR team for its unwavering support and commitment to the regenerative movement. Makepeace explained that without our content and event coverage, our convenings, our championing of natural and organic specialists, the organic and regenerative movement would not have the market penetration, the financial and political power, or the consumer awareness that it has today.

Newtopia Now is proof that we have power at Informa to shape and create inclusive markets that operate in service to global environmental and societal needs.

By the numbers, Newtopia Now:

• Hosted 4 thematic dine-around themed: Thrive, Glow, Represent, and Regenerate
• Supported 4 local, values-aligned restaurants in our host city, Denver, CO: Nest at Nurture, Bar Dough, Sullivan's Scrap Kitchen, and Ash'Kara
• Nourished the bellies and minds of over 150 buyers, manufacturers, investors, producers, and community organizers collaborating to increase access to and market growth of natural and organic products.

Watch 'Newtopia Now 2024 – That's a Wrap!'

Unlocking barriers to reading and publishing

Stephen J. Johnson Senior Staff Editor,

The PeerJ Open Advances series is envisioned as more than a collection of journals; it is a more equitable and sustainable approach to open access publishing. By removing financial barriers to both reading and publishing, Open Advances will unlock access to and participation in the communication of world-changing research. This will allow the journals' research communities, led by Editorial Boards of global experts, to focus on identifying Global Challenges within their fields and prioritising the peer review and publication of research that contributes to solving those challenges. Each journal in the series will prioritise impactful research and meaningful commentary addressing the most pressing Global Challenges to life on this planet now and in the future. The first four journals in the series – Zoology, Plant Science, Marine Biology, and Ecology – will focus on fostering groundbreaking biological discoveries.

Articles and contributors will be grouped by Global Challenge, building a corpus of content – and a community network

– that contributes to answering key questions and overcoming obstacles to completing that Challenge. Every research article will be accompanied by an Impact Statement highlighting how the research contributes to its Challenge.

The Global Challenges are inspired by Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in their design but are more specifically focused on pertinent research problems rather than being tied to specific SDGs. We expect that research published in the first four journals will contribute to zero hunger, clean water, clean energy, sustainable communities, climate action, life below water, and life on land.

The series also adopts a forward-thinking approach to Open Access publishing. It will be supported financially by Annual Institutional Memberships (AIMs)—PeerJ's innovative revenue model. Ultimately, this model aims to distribute the costs of peer review and publishing proportionally among the institutions and funders who value, use, and can afford to support it. Our goal is that no author should be prevented from choosing open access due to financial constraints and that no financial barriers should prevent the open publication of research that contributes meaningfully to solving the world's greatest challenges.

Our vision for Open Advances is simple yet ambitious: to empower researchers everywhere to contribute to a better world. By prioritizing research that tackles Global Challenges and making it accessible to all, the series paves the way for scientific breakthroughs that can truly change the world.

Relevant SDG

SDGOnline

Taylor & Francis' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Online collection supports higher-education students, lecturers, researchers and professionals as they learn about, teach about, research and write about, and work out how to address the world's most critical issues. We've seen great improvements this year compared to 2023.

25,698 book chapters (up 10% from 2023

2,397 journal articles

(10% increase)

338

teaching and learning materials (0.5% increase)

116

institutions have access to SDGO (16% increase)

Making communities cleaner and greener in the Philippines

Apple Limbo Event Manager, Informa Markets, Manila

ProPak Philippines is the leading international processing and packaging trade event for the Philippines. The event provides various industries – food, drink, pharmaceuticals – with access to the latest developments in packaging and processing machines and technology from leading companies across the globe.

One of the main challenges facing the industry is recycling. ProPak Philippines explored this issue in more than 10 seminars and conferences looking at recycling, waste reduction and legislation.

Different partnerships helped us to address sustainability throughout the event. We partnered with Prestige Paper Products to organise the Sustainability Square, which promoted sustainability practices across the show. With the Department of Trade and Industry, we shared information about national standards for responsible packaging.

We also worked with the Department of Science and Technology, the World Packaging Organization and the Australian Institute of Packaging to promote various innovative packaging and educate attendees about the latest trends and innovations in the sector.

In partnership with the Philippine Alliance for Recycling and Materials (PARMS), a pioneering non-profit organisation dedicated to driving sustainable waste management practices in the Philippines, we helped educate the public on strategic practices across the value chain. The main aim of the partnership was to raise awareness about the alliance's advocacy. This laid the groundwork for continued collaboration.

We also partnered with the KILUS (Kababaihan Iisang Layunin Umunlad ang Sambayanan) Foundation, an all-women organisation consisting of 500 strong women aiming to make their community cleaner and greener while providing work opportunities to residents. During the show, they conducted upcycling demonstrations to raise awareness of their work.

Relevant SDG

One of the main challenges facing the industry is recycling. Propak Philippines explored this issue in more than 10 seminars and conferences looking at recycling, waste reduction and legislation.

Our positive impacts on the world are multiplied when we improve access to knowledge, contribute economically to our host cities, invest in our communities, and save event attendees' travel by getting a lot done under one roof.

Connecting the disconnected

In 2020, we set out to reach one million people who can't normally access our products and services because of accessibility or inequality of access.

Our leading brands connect people with knowledge. Through the Connecting the Disconnected programme, we rethink the design of our products to reach those who struggle to access knowledge and networks.

Commitments 6

Enable one million disconnected people to access networks and knowledge by 2025

Progress highlights

Large number of connections with disconnected individuals. We have chosen to refocus on connections that are more deep, meaningful and measurable.

>350,000

high quality connections made for disconnected people since launching FasterForward in 2020

98,900

disadvantaged people connected through our events businesses in 2024

42,600

people connected through Taylor & Francis programmes in 2024

Provided free access to our T&F publications for authors and researchers in low-income countries

48%

of events that scored in the Fundamentals had initiatives to connect disconnected individuals

74

free workshops for authors and researchers in low-income countries

Next steps

• Continue to focus on meaningful partnerships where the individual has a more significant chance to be impacted
• Continue to seek ways to scale digitally
• Measure numbers and impact further, particularly in T&F

Relevant SDG

Number of disconnected people who received access to networks and knowledge

Helping pharma professionals thrive through mentorship

Shanaya Lalmahomed Marketing Executive, Informa Markets, Amsterdam

At CPHI Milan last October, we launched the CPHI Mentorship Programme to connect experienced practitioners with ambitious newcomers within the pharma network.

CPHI fosters partnerships, nurtures relationships, and supports innovative thinkers essential for the pharmaceutical field. Over the years, we've collected inspiring stories from attendees and learned how vital mentorship is for navigating careers. Many advised newcomers to find mentors to guide them through challenges and career growth.

Our research also highlighted a gender imbalance in leadership roles within the pharma industry, inspiring us to address this gap through mentorship. Mentorship promotes personal development, job satisfaction, diversity, and employee retention.

As a pilot, we hosted a mentorship session at CPHI Milan, aiming for 10 mentors and mentees but exceeding expectations with 27 mentors, 31 mentees, and 49 bookmarked sessions on the app. The session introduced the topic and encouraged connections, with attendees exchanging contacts. Building on this success, we're excited to officially launch the CPHI Mentorship Programme at CPHI Frankfurt this November.

Find out more

Improving accessibility of our content

At T&F, our work to make our publications accessible to all regardless of individual physical needs has been recognised in the ASPIRE Publishers List, the Global Certified Accessible™ (GCA) certification, and the Accessible Books Consortium. We also support initiatives that create equitable access to knowledge through a range of partnerships and programmes that provide free access to content, discounted open access fees, and free publishing training.

Why equal access to open research matters

In 2024, Taylor & Francis published its Equity Position document, which aims to make the benefits of open research available to all.

Priya Madina Vice President, External Affairs and Policy, Taylor & Francis, Milton Park

At Taylor & Francis (T&F), we want to find meaningful ways to support all researchers, wherever they are and whatever their circumstances. They all operate in unique contexts so this means developing a broad range of options. We're working very closely with the scholarly community to develop, pilot, expand, scale, and improve several longstanding initiatives that I believe really make a difference here.

Why do we need an equity position?

Although open research transforms the ways in which knowledge is created and shared, researchers still face challenges that prevent their work from reaching its full potential and impact. Once research is open, it doesn't then necessarily follow that people understand or know how, where and why to access it. While open research is developing rapidly around the world, differences in people's ability to access or publish it risks undermining the quality and inclusivity of research. This is vitally important and, in the long term, could hamper the advancement of science and society. Put simply, it is harder for some researchers, institutions, regions and disciplines to choose open research – they have less recognition, support and access. This is why we are developing pathways for a more equitable open research process.

At T&F, we're continuing to innovate in our efforts to ease the costs of sharing research across all regions and disciplines. Our Equity Position statement shows our support of the STM Equity in OA Statement and our partners. It sets out our approaches and practices openly and transparently so we can extend the reach of these initiatives to more researchers and institutions. While good progress has been made, there is still much to do. We are continuing to develop partnerships within the scholarly community to bring greater equity and diversity to scholarly communication. We're also trying to ensure that we consider the needs of researchers from all countries during our commercial negotiations with our partners.

Find out more on our equity position

Pillar one

The first is making open access (OA) publishing more affordable to researchers and institutions in low- and low-middle income countries across all disciplines through partnerships with Research4Life, collaborative funding initiatives and capacity-building support.

Pillar two

The second is working to enable greater and more equitable participation in open research through our membership of the Coalition for Diversity & Inclusion in Scholarly Communications, among other joint commitments.

There are two main pillars to our equity position

Amplifying the scholarly contributions of the Global South

The first open access transformative agreement in Sub-Saharan Africa will amplify research impact and contributions from the Global South.

Nitasha Devasar Vice President & Commercial Lead India, South Asia & Africa, Taylor & Francis, New Delhi

Ellie Souster Head of Transformative Agreements, Taylor & Francis, London

Researchers in South Africa, Botswana, and Namibia to publish open access (OA) articles in over

2,100 journals

Both faculty and students at participating institutions will be able to read over

1,900 journals

in Humanities and Social Sciences, and Science and Technology

We're thrilled to say that, this year, we agreed a new threeyear transformative agreement with the South African National Library and Information Consortium (SANLiC). This partnership ensures that researchers based at the more than 30 SANLiC member institutions can benefit both from accessing T&F's high-quality content, as well as publishing open access at no cost to themselves.

It is our first agreement of this type in the region and it will support researchers in South Africa, Botswana and Namibia to publish open access (OA) articles in over 2,100 journals. Authors at participating institutions will be able to choose OA in all T&F and Routledge Open Select journals.

Both faculty and students at participating institutions will be able to read over 1,900 journals in Humanities and Social Sciences, and Science and Technology. Researchers who choose to publish in full OA journals can do so at reduced cost, with their institution's support, helping to maximise the impact of their research. Driven by the need to build regional capacity, the partnership offers a comprehensive training program on topics including open research, publishing ethics, and research integrity. One of the most well-received sessions in this programme was our peer-reviewer training, aimed at increasing author and reviewer representation in T&F journals.

This partnership is already elevating regional scholarship on the global stage through increased reach and visibility of publications. In year downloads of 2024 articles by SANLiCaffiliated researchers have doubled compared to in year downloads for 2023 articles, reaching over 691K (up from 376K). Readership has grown significantly in regions such as the United States and India. There is also a surge in downloads from the World Bank-classified low and lowermiddle-income economies rising from 69K to 153K. This milestone demonstrates how the agreement is breaking barriers to access and delivering high-quality research.

Partnerships are central to our work in Sub-Saharan Africa, enabling us to deliver mutual value and lasting success. The SANLiC agreement, shaped through extensive dialogue and shared expertise, exemplifies a 'transformative' collaboration tailored to the region's needs.

This partnership shows our commitment to championing diversity in scholarly communication, particularly by amplifying the voices and contributions of the Global South through open access. We are really excited to continue to track the impact this increase in OA will have – and we're so grateful to everyone who worked hard to make it happen.

Impact Multiplier

Economic contribution to host cities

When thousands or even tens of thousands of people gather in one city for one of our events, the local economy is boosted by our local spend and, even more, by visitors' spend on hotels and with other local businesses.

Some of this spend recirculates through the local economy, helping create even more jobs. To calculate this boost, we use a model developed for us by a third-party consultant, Little Blue Research.

Commitments

Contribute \$5bn per year in value for our host cities by 2025

Relevant SDG

Paying tax is part of our contribution to the communities in which we operate. Our taxes help governments provide the vital local services and infrastructure we rely on to run our business successfully. In 2024, Informa's total tax contribution was £545.8m, including £213.8m of taxes borne by the Group and £332m of taxes collected on behalf of governments.

£546m

Total tax contribution in 2024

Progress highlights

Target was achieved with more ways to measure wider impact still being developed.

\$6.8bn

economic impact on 50 of our host cities*

of total events revenues

Expanded our city-level economic impact calculations

host cities assessed

(*) We believe this figure undervalues our actual economic impact as tax payments, exhibitors' spend on local suppliers and sales generated by local exhibitors at our events are not yet being measured.

Next steps

• Explore how we can work with partners to enhance the local impact of events
• Expand measurement to all host cities in all countries and expand the measurement criteria, particularly to try to capture exhibitor spend with local contractors

Donations to our communities

We contribute to local community groups by donating cash and products, by giving exposure to community groups, by sharing skills through volunteering and by being a catalyst for fundraising activities.

Increasingly, these contributions go to support the purposeful partnerships between our brands and industryrelevant not-for-profit organisations, as well as through free or discounted T&F products to those who'd benefit from access to that knowledge.

Commitment

8 Contribute value of at least 1% of profit before tax to community groups by 2025

Progress highlights

Target achieved due to the donations made or induced by our brands, our T&F programmes and other initiatives.

£12.5m

total value contribution in 2024

£276,000

raised for charities in 2024 through our Walk the World programme

4

paid volunteer days offered to colleagues a year

1.25%

of profit before tax, total value contribution equivalent

£1.7m

raised cumulatively since Walk The World started

£750

grants to regular charity volunteers and up to £500 match fundraising for every colleague

Next steps

• Continue to grow the partnerships that help us contribute time, effort, knowledge and resources to communities around the world
• Grow participation in Walk the World to 65% of our colleagues, including recent acquisitions
• Increase the percentage of colleagues volunteering to 20% by 2030

Relevant SDG

Value contributed

Community contributions

Around the world, Informa runs a number of initiatives to raise money or provide value for non-profit organisations. These are particularly important both for our colleagues and for the local organisations that we support. Here are some examples.

Supporting flood victims in Brazil

Herbert Kanashiro, Sustainability Project Coordinator, Informa Markets, São Paulo

The 2024 flooding in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil was the worst climate catastrophe in the state's history. Informa Markets Latam joined forces with Fundação Caxias, a local charity and invited our audience to be part of this chain of solidarity and support flood victims. Fundação Caxias told us what they needed most was mattresses for the victims. In an integrated action, nine of our events and the São Paulo office donated around 500 mattresses to support Fundação Caxias. At the time, the roads and airports in Rio Grande do Sul were closed, so we decided to buy the mattresses from one of our exhibitors, Herval, which is located in the state and was able to deliver the mattresses directly to Fundação Caxias.

In addition, many of our events provided additional support and ran communication campaigns to encourage donations to the SOS Rio Grande do Sul campaign. For example, part of the revenue from ticket sales for the Hospitalar 2024 edition was donated to flood victims. The show also donated R\$30,000 (£4,000) in cash to Hospital Mãe de Deus. Before, during and after the event we ran a communication campaign to mobilise donations from our partners, exhibitors and audience. This had a huge effect: we gathered more than 18,700 products, equipment, supplies, and medications for the neediest hospitals and health services affected by the floods in Rio Grande do Sul.

Engaging the local community in Indonesia

Rina Rojanah Putri, Event Executive, Informa Markets, Jakarta

Lab Indonesia is one the leading laboratory exhibitions in Southeast Asia, focusing on scientific instruments and laboratory equipment. It is important for us to support our local community, which we do in a number of ways.

The first strand of our community engagement is improving access to knowledge. In 2024, we invited 100 university students and 50 people from the Indonesian Association of Teaching Laboratory Staff to attend our events and learn first-hand from industry leaders. We provided free space to the Indonesian Microbiology Society (PERMI) to provide information about preventive care and overall community well-being.

The second is direct health interventions. In collaboration with a local hospital (Tanah Abang Hospital), we provided free health check-up for 110 visitors. We also gave free space to the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) to run a blood donation drive.

Finally, we look at the needs of workers in the sector. We collaborated with the Indonesian Employment Social Security Agency (BPJS) to donate insurance coverage worth IDR 10 million (around £500) to vulnerable workers in the laboratory industry.

Volunteers Provide Early Literacy Intervention

Since 2020, Taylor & Francis has partnered, in the United Kingdom and United States, with Chapter One – a literacy charity which connects corporate volunteers with primary school children for weekly, 30-minute online reading sessions. These pupils often come from disadvantaged backgrounds and are struggling with their reading. In the past four years over 130 T&F colleagues have helped foster human progress through knowledge by providing more than 1300 hours of reading sessions and directly helping more than 200 pupils improve their literacy skills.

The impact that our volunteers have had on children's literacy is truly inspiring. On average, pupils participating in the programme increase their reading level by 44% in a year. There is also a 25% increase in students reading at the expected level for their age by the end of the year compared to the beginning. 87% of teachers also report that the children show greater confidence in their reading after having weekly sessions with their reading buddy.

The positive effects of the Chapter One program also extend to our volunteers. This is what two of our long-term reading buddies have to say about the programme:

For nearly four years, I've had the joy of volunteering with the ChapterOne reading programme, and each year it becomes even more rewarding. Reading with the pupils is such a wholesome experience, and it's truly heartwarming to watch their confidence grow as they develop their reading skills. I'm so grateful to play a small part in their journey—it's a privilege that always fills my heart.

Mahnoor Butt, Deputy Production Manager, T&F, UK

Number of colleagues volunteering

2022 1,145 colleagues 2023 1,190 colleagues 2024 1,408 colleagues

Number of hours volunteering

2022 12,200 hours

2024 20,300 hours

Travel consolidators

B2B events are an incredibly efficient way for attendees to achieve many goals in one place: meeting customers and suppliers face to face, learning about new products or industry trends, and accessing education.

As a result, our attendees don't need to travel to different places to achieve the same goals. This saves them time and money, and reduces carbon emissions.

Commitment

9 Save customers more carbon than we emit by 2025

Progress highlights

Attendees surveys show that live events reduce the need for additional travel and are generally clear consolidators of travel.

In early 2020, we ran a pilot programme to measure the number of flights our events attendees thought they had saved by conducting a number of activities in one place at an event. Across a small sample of 15 events, we estimated a net saving of 190,000 flights

We then improved measurements in post-show surveys for hundreds of events in 2021 and 2022 although changes in travel patterns in Covid-19 led to unusual results

In 2022, we initiated a collaboration between five major global events organisers to conduct a study across 10 events, including more than 550 detailed interviews with customers, to better understand the role our events play in consolidating travel and how to better measure this as part of the Net Zero Carbon Events Initiative

In 2023, standard questions were developed across the pilot organisations

In 2024, a public methodology was released for all organisers to test and further work is ongoing to improve it along with much wider scale measurement.

Next steps

• Codify and pilot initiatives at our events to increase the 'travel consolidation' provided by our events, reducing flights by customers
• Work with NZCE to improve the approach and expand engagement with industry stakeholders

Relevant SDG

Meeting in person is simply better

Ben Wielgus Head of Sustainability, Informa Group, London

It's been a long time since I've been to a Zoom pub quiz.

It's not that they were bad. It's just that doing it in person is better. It's more fun, more engaging, more memorable and a better use of my time, my money and my energy.

In a world where time is our most limited resource, I want to make sure that when I do commit to meeting with friends, colleagues or business contacts, it's enriching, valuable and as effective as possible. Like many people, I've found myself having to be more selective in where I go and who I meet up with to make sure I get the most out of each and every opportunity.

I don't think I'm alone. We all have to make sure that every journey we take gives the maximum possible benefit out of all the options we have available. It's that concept that I think gives us huge confidence in the future of our events here at Informa.

Generally, our products are number one or two in their market. Many are described as 'must attend' by our customers and they help propel industries forward. Not just in terms of trade and meetings but by fostering innovation, sparking connections and convening whole industries to ensure their future success.

Our aim is always for our events to deliver amazing value for the time, money, energy, nights away from family and all the other investments our customers choose to make in our product.

One of the measures of this that we've used for the last 8 years is the level of 'travel consolidation' reported by our attendees. I.e. The number of flights or journeys saved by taking that one trip to the event. Whether it's been an efficient way to meet business partners, a chance to get education, an extra few days to see the host city or a chance to qualify new leads, many of our customers tell us they save other journeys in the year by coming to our events.

We've worked with other major event organisers to open source and improve our methodology for measuring travel consolidation and it's now been shared via the Net Zero Carbon Events initiative as an ongoing project to try to get a better sense of the level of travel consolidation for our industry. We hope that this will lead to a further project on the patterns of travel consolidation, giving us a clearer understanding of how to help events remain a compelling reason to travel to them and an efficient use of our customer's investment.

We're now measuring the level of travel consolidation across hundreds of Informa events and it is clear that our trade shows, particularly the large international ones at the heart of their market, are net travel consolidators. Overall, we believe we save our customers more travel than we create.

It's now down to us to continue to ensure that our events remain a compelling investment that customers are excited and eager to attend and increase that level of travel consolidation. One key way of doing that is continuing to ensure that customers achieve many outcomes from that one trip.

Overall we believe we save our customers more travel than we create. It's now down to us to continue to ensure that our events remain a compelling investment that customers are excited and eager to attend and increase that level of travel consolidation.

Sustainable events

Two key programmes within our Sustainable Events Management System help us achieve our FasterForward goals within our events: the Fundamentals and the Accelerator.

The Fundamentals is a 16-point checklist of minimum expectations for more sustainable events. Through the Accelerator, the Informa Sustainability team work much more closely with more than 30 key events to take their sustainability much further.

Expanding the Fundamentals across our main events is critical to reaching our sustainability targets and all our C-suite are bonused, in part, based on how many events reach a score of at least 10 in the Fundamentals (see page 122 of the Annual Report). This then gets cascaded down to managers' targets.

Commitment

Increase the number of Fundamentals-accredited events to 500 by 2026

Progress highlights

We've achieved our 2024 target and are on track to meet our 2026 one.

1,346

Fundamentals completed since 2019, including more than 431 in 2024

41

events have been through the Accelerator over the past three years

9%

increase in average scores over the past three years

Launched the Fundamentals 2.0 – adding four more criteria and increasing minimum expectations

Next steps

• Focus on the business value that sustainability and the Fundamentals can help delivery
• Continue to make progress against all 16 targets

Number of events that participated in the Fundamentals

The Fundamentals 2.0

Last year we upgraded the Fundamentals system with the aim to propel Sustainability Inside further, be bolder about Connecting the Disconnected, roll out Better Stands at pace and better address the impacts of attendees' travel.

This year we worked with our events teams across Informa to fully embed a new online platform which allows us to work more efficiently within and across teams, and scale the Fundamentals to 400+ events. With better visibility of sustainability performance within Informa's events, the platform gives us a leading edge when it comes to inspiring and educating others in the industry.

The platform transforms the Fundamentals from simply a minimum standard on sustainability to an interactive application with specific and catered guidance and

improvement suggestions for every event. The platform increases the ease with which event teams can integrate sustainability into an event's planning for the next edition rather than just being a backward looking scorecard.

All of this means we are better positioned to meet the sustainability expectations of a modern audience whilst developing new products, boosting our reputation and finding new innovations. Events teams can view and track their progress – making sustainable practices continuous and ongoing rather than a once-a-year 'task'. The platform also encourages accountability across event teams and gives teams better insight into best practices via the events leaderboard.

Purpose

• 1. For sustainability to be included in the content of the event.
• 2. For the event brand to have successfully embedded Sustainability Inside, helping our customers accelerate sustainable development in their speciality market.
• 3. For the event to have a purposeful partnership with a not for profit.

Stakeholder Engagement

• 4. For there to be six significant sustainability communications.
• 5. For the event team to be engaged with sustainability, and it to be a part of event decisions.

Carbon and Waste

• 6. For all lighting specified by Informa to be LEDs, and for the venue's lights and air conditioning to be used efficiently.
• 7. For the event to have minimal to no waste generation from areas of the show built by Informa, and for the carpet to be reused or recycled.
• 8. For all exhibitor stands to have reached at least a Bronze level in the Better Stands programme, according to its ten-box framework.
• 9. For there to be at least three initiatives to optimise the impact of attendee travel.

Procurement

• 10. For three items procured for the event to have enhanced sustainability credentials.
• 11. For there to be at least three ways in which the sustainability of the food and beverages (F&B) of the event has been enhanced.

Community and Wellbeing

• 12. For the event to have at least two initiatives which support the local community around the event venue.
• 13. For the event to have at least three initiatives which enhance wellbeing, equality, accessibility, and respect for all.
• 14. For the event to have successfully implemented and measured the impact of at least one significant initiative to 'Connect the Disconnected', removing barriers to our networks and knowledge for an identified group.

Governance

• 15. For the event to be compliant with Informa's Health and Safety Guidelines.
• 16. For event sustainability data to be submitted by six weeks of the event.

Working together for sustainable events

In 2023, Informa acquired Tarsus and 88 new events joined our Sustainable Event Fundamentals programme. Our new colleagues quickly got on board, with a series of training sessions on the 16-point Fundamentals framework.

Naomi Warmington Senior Sustainability Manager, Informa Group, London

We genuinely care about running responsible, sustainable events. It's the right thing to do for the environment and society, it creates a stronger connection with our audiences – who have increasingly high expectations – and creates higher quality events overall, leading to higher net promoter score, better customer relationships and more of a premium product.

Our new colleagues from Tarsus told us they were excited to learn from Informa's experience and gain access to our tools, and we were glad to host a series of 90-minute online training sessions aimed at helping new event teams integrate sustainability into their daily work.

The training provided practical, real-world examples of the Fundamentals being applied to event planning. Participants were encouraged to develop actionable sustainability plans for their own upcoming events. My job is to focus on sustainability, so I found it heartening that over 300 new colleagues attended these sessions. This shows what a strong commitment there is to these issues across the whole business.

One particularly inspiring element of the sessions was a look at some sustainability initiatives already underway, including sustainability being embedded within the content of events. We heard about the Dubai Airshow, which hosted a two-day sustainability on challenges with the Sustainable Aviation Fuel supply chain. The conference explored opportunities to enhance engine design efficiency, and showcased cuttingedge technology to measure and reduce emissions.

We chose two major event brands, Dubai Air Show and Labels Expo, to join the Sustainability Accelerator programme. Events on the Accelerator programme receive more in-depth support to meet all our FasterForward goals and even go beyond.

Acquisition and integration can be complicated processes, but throughout 2024, I've been personally delighted to see such strong engagement with sustainability initiatives from our newest events. By year's end, 33 events had successfully completed the Sustainability Fundamentals with an impressive average score of 11.4 out of 16.

I'm excited to continue this journey with our event teams in 2025, working with new and old colleagues to achieve even better sustainability outcomes for our events and the industries they serve.

LabelExpo, which joined Informa from the Tarsus acquisition, has stepped up sustainability ambitions to meet our customers' needs. In recent years, sustainable products and initiatives have become key industry talking points, and many exhibitors are eager to showcase their work. The Fundamentals have shaped our future thinking – not only in terms of making the event itself more sustainable, but helping our customers to be more sustainable in their own products and processes. We were already aligned with many of the Fundamentals but now feel more confident than ever that we're on the right path. I'm looking forward to what we'll accomplish together.

Jade Grace Managing Director of Labels Group

Caring for the local community in Chicago

The National Restaurant Association Show joined us in 2023, after Informa acquired Winsight. The team had been supporting local communities for many years.

Lisa Malikow SVP – Event Operations & Programming, Informa Connect, Chicago

16.5 tonnes

of food donated to the Depository in 2024

21.6 tonnes

of food donated to the Fight2Feed in 2024

I've been working on the National Restaurant Show since 2008. We're proud of our partnerships with local non-profits, industry groups and local schools. Since 1979, we've partnered with the Greater Chicago Food Depository to divert leftover food from our exhibitors to feed families in need across Chicagoland, and in recent years with Fight2Feed. In 2024, the Show donated 21 tonnes to Fight2Feed and 16.24 Tonnes to Greater Chicago Food Depository. This was our largest donation to date. We also donated old culinary kitchen equipment; these were items we no longer needed that will make a huge difference to Fight2Feed. Donating leftover products is a win-win that benefits the local community, while allowing exhibitors to save on shipping costs and reduce their carbon footprint. This is so rewarding to work on and the Fundamentals have been a useful guide to further embedding sustainability practices through the whole show.

As well as these direct charitable donations, we encourage the next generation of local talent. For over 20 years, the National Restaurant Association Show has done this through the High School Visitation Program. Students (aged 16 and over) on culinary and hospitality programmes at local public schools in Chicago and Illinois are invited to attend the Show, where they can explore career opportunities and learn from food service experts, chefs and operators. It's a popular initiative – at the 2024 Show, 481 students and chaperones from 22 schools across the Chicago area participated. It's wonderful to see how engaged students are.

We care deeply about diversity and inclusion, which is reflected in the range of programming at the Show. We champion women in the industry, and in 2024 held a Women Leaders Reception at the Show attended by 126 female industry leaders. We work with the Multicultural Foodservice & Hospitality Alliance on programming addressing DE&I in the workforce and hold events highlighting the importance of second-chance hiring for people with criminal records.

Colleagues

Life@Informa is our commitment to make working at Informa as rewarding as possible. It focuses on four key areas: freedom, impact, community and opportunity. It was developed based on our colleagues' feedback on their experience working at Informa.

How we're making it easier to work together

Informa connects people, knowledge and ideas – and inclusion is at the heart of it all.

Claire Semple Chief Talent & Inclusion Officer, Informa Group, London

Fundamentally, Informa is a company that is all about connecting people, knowledge and ideas. What enables us to do this so effectively through our events, publications and platforms is an ethos of inclusion: working together, valuing and respecting our differences and growing stronger as a result. We're a global company, and we work hard to build an inclusive workplace for all our colleagues.

In October 2024, we ran our second global diversity awareness month across Informa. We called it "Everyone Included", as this has been an important theme across 2024 – a year in which we welcomed many new colleagues into the Informa family. This makes it more important than ever for us to foster connections between people – through mentoring and other initiatives to help colleagues understand the business and progress their careers. We provide access to skills-based learning, and around 10% of the workforce is participating in an internal mentoring scheme at any one time.

One highlight of 2024 was our first-ever internal careers week. This was a week-long series of events, masterclasses and drop-in sessions open to all Informa colleagues. More than 2,000 people joined the sessions over the course of the week and almost 90% of respondents to our feedback survey said that when they look for the next role, they will look inside Informa first.

Essentially, we want to make it easier for our colleagues to work together and to develop their careers. This is something that's already embedded into our business, and I'm really pleased to say that our voluntary attrition rate has further decreased to 7.2% from 19.8% in 2021. ⁴⁶ Informa Sustainability Report 2024 Find out more about

I've got no doubt this is partly due to our continued investment in developing talent and encouraging new experiences. One such exciting initiative is Showmakers, which launched in 2024. On this scheme, colleagues can gain firsthand experience of an Informa event by working onsite alongside a new team. So far more than 100 people have taken part across 38 different events, and the Showmakers team have plans to expand the programme in 2025 to include 64 shows. More broadly, we're working to ensure an inclusive environment at all our events through the rollout of DEI Fundamentals. This is now being used to track progress by teams at 294 of our events.

The foundation of inclusion is listening to people, and we consider ourselves lucky to have such highly engaged colleagues, who are committed to supporting the company, our customers and communities. This was reflected in our annual colleague conversation, Inside Informa Pulse, which this year broke participation records.

2025 will see the start of the One Informa programme, all across the business. We are excited about supporting this in Talent & Inclusion and will be continuing our activities to make even more opportunity and support available to everyone across the company.

Life@Informa

Breaking down barriers to internal mobility

Career opportunity is important to our colleagues. A cornerstone of Informa's talent strategy in 2024 has been internal mobility – supporting colleagues' progress in their careers by moving to other roles within Informa when the time is right.

Rachel Cole Talent Acquisition Lead – Internal Mobility, Informa Group, London

The best part of my role is working with people to help them find their full potential within Informa.

The best part of my role is working with people to help them find their full potential within Informa. It's my responsibility to provide a safe environment and offer confidential conversations, highlighting the diverse career paths on offer, and providing guidance on how they might grow and develop.

That work has been bolstered this year by the launch of the group-wide Internal Mobility programme. This involves leaders and specialists across all divisions and teams, including Talent Acquisition, HR, Learning & Development, and Communications.

It's been amazing to see how effective the programme has been in breaking down barriers to internal mobility. One of the key objectives was to educate managers and leaders about how important it is to mobilise their talent and equip colleagues with the skills to identify relevant opportunities. We're also working to make sure everyone feels comfortable discussing career progression with their managers.

We are running a communications campaign to increase awareness of internal mobility and highlight its success stories, while providing managers and colleagues with the resources needed to make it an integral part of our company culture. We have a team developing specialised programmes that offer colleagues the chance to experience different teams, expand their networks and discover new career opportunities they may not have previously known existed.

As well as simplifying the process of searching and applying for roles, we've made significant strides in establishing a standardised approach to measuring internal mobility. This includes creating custom dashboards to track trends and provide insights.

Thanks to the work of everyone involved, 2024 saw great progress in career mobility and opportunity. 30% of Informa's global vacancies were filled internally, an 11% increase from the previous year. However, we could do even more to give colleagues opportunities to grow, develop and move around Informa. As we look forward to 2025, we aim to make career mobility even easier and more embedded.

Informa has been ranked 3 in Glassdoor's list of top large UK companies to work for

26%

of eligible colleagues participate in share ownership schemes

7.2%

voluntary attrition rate, down from 19.8% in 2021

of job vacancies were filled internally in 2024 up from 24% in 2023

Our six cross-company AllInforma networks champion and support diverse communities. Run by colleagues for colleagues, they focus on gender balance, colleagues with visible and invisible disabilities and conditions, minority ethnic communities, LGBTQIA+ colleagues, service members and their families, and early careers colleagues. Each network has been featured in previous reports. This year we revisit the AllInforma Balance network for an update.

AllInforma Balance for gender equality

Raluca Istrate Sustainability Manager & AllInforma Balance Leadership team, Informa Group, London

As a sustainability professional, my daily job spreads across the 3 pillars of sustainability: environmental, social and economic. Whilst I enjoy engaging with projects in all 3 areas, I am particularly passionate about Diversity & Inclusion which is why in 2023 I joined the leadership team of AllInforma Balance. This CRN focuses on supporting gender equality in the workspace, and it is open to everyone – women, men, and non-binary colleagues.

We aim to foster inclusivity and facilitate open dialogue, all with the goal of creating a positive workplace experience for all our colleagues.

Throughout the year, we mark dates such as International Women's Day, International Men's Day, World Menopause Day and others with special events for our colleagues.

We also organise other initiatives year-round – including live sessions, podcasts and articles. We host interviews with senior leaders within the business, or with relevant voices from around the world. We try to make this content engaging, using it to highlight subjects that are important to our global audience, such as such as mental and physical health, career development and work-life balance and give our colleagues the opportunity to engage in conversations about genderrelated challenges.

AllInforma Balance has more than 300 members spread across the world which gives us the chance to share ideas with people from different cultures and backgrounds. Together, we are striving to build a more inclusive world, harnessing our colleagues' ability to change society for the better and I am proud to be part of it.

Managing safety

Steve Dyson Head of Group Health, Safety and Security, Informa Group, London Operating safely is a fundamental principle for Informa. One of our major achievements in 2024 was the successful launch of a new, global health, safety and security incident reporting and investigation tool. It's already had a major impact in helping us improve how we look after colleagues, customers and partners.

More than 800 of our events have plans in place to manage issues and incidents of any type and nature. With the new system, we have been able to instil a stronger reporting culture, with training delivered to more than 750 colleagues. Reports are more detailed than ever before and received in real-time. We also have access to improved data analytics, meaning that we can highlight areas of strength and weakness and share improvements across Informa.

Any major roll-out is a collaborative effort, and I'm grateful for the support from colleagues across the business that helped make this possible. Looking ahead, feedback from users has already helped us identify changes that will further improve the effectiveness of our tool in 2025 and beyond.

How we are tracking our impact

Colleague engagement Average headcount

colleague engagement score across a range of questions

and objectives

of our colleagues believe strongly in Informa's goals of our colleagues say that their work gives them a personal sense of accomplishment

Global gender data

Colleague turnover

Turnover figures include colleagues who left Informa as part of a business divestment

Absenteeism

Average sickness absence per colleague (days)

Board gender data

Median pay

UK gap in male/female median pay

See more here

Everyone's invited to Walk the World

walks completed in 2024

Toronto

Bethany Fruen Sustainability Engagement and Community Manager, Informa Group, London

In a business as fast paced and diverse as Informa, we could all benefit from taking a step away from our desks, getting outside and reconnecting with colleagues and the world around us. Each year, for every Informa office and homeworker, we encourage our colleagues to do exactly that. To turn off the laptops and take a walk. To spend time with their colleagues outside of the pressure of focused meetings. To get moving, in a way that is accessible to all. And to raise money for good causes.

Walk the World

We call it Walk the World (WTW) – and everyone is invited. Now in its ninth year, this edition of WTW saw 7,000 colleagues take part in 65 walks across 25 countries, raising £276K for our chosen charity partners. With over £1.7 million raised through the programme to date and more than 40,000 walkers to date, WTW has a very real impact on so many lives.

Each walk is similar in format but varied in execution – with backdrops like the famous Bondi Beach in Australia or Central Park in New York City. What all walks do have in common is volunteer champions. These are incredible colleagues who take time away from their day jobs to plan and deliver events that are the highlight of many colleagues' years. Walk the World simply wouldn't exist without them! Next year myself and our global champions will be organising walks for the 10th year. We're very excited to celebrate with you all.

Because of WTW:
								97%
feel prouder to work for Informa
									95%
more likely to recommend working for Informa
									95%
feel more connected to their team

6,985 participants in 2024

Kansas City

Jakarta

To ensure the effectiveness of our sustainability programmes, a range of specialist teams report to senior management and the Board on progress against our targets. Internal and external audit teams provide assurance over key components of our sustainability reporting.

such as Life@Informa, Data Privacy and our Health, Safety and Security management programmes are tackling the most material issues. These sustainability-related risks are managed as part of our company-wide Enterprise Risk

Management framework. We are finalising an updated

materiality assessment in 2025.

A key part of our approach to sustainability is to identify and focus on the issues that are most material to Informa and to the wider world. In 2023, we conducted an updated double materiality assessment to assess whether the areas of focus identified in 2020, when we launched FasterForward, were still the most material. The results (presented below) confirmed that FasterForward as well as other programmes

Material matters and current programmes and activities

Summary Assurance Statement

Bureau Veritas UK Limited ('Bureau Veritas') has been engaged by Informa PLC ("Informa") to provide limited assurance of its selected key performance indicators (KPIs) within the Informa Sustainability Report 2024. The selected KPIs reviewed covered the period 1 January – 31 December 2024. Bureau Veritas performed the work to a limited level of assurance in accordance with International Standard on Assurance

Engagements (ISAE) 3000 (Revised). The full verification statement including the scope of work and Bureau Veritas' assurance conclusion, methodology, exclusions and limitations, and a statement of independence and impartiality will be published alongside the Report and available here.

Read more

SASB, GRI and data tables

Download our GRI and SASB tables, reporting methodology, policies, data table and information about governance of sustainability at Informa.

Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD)

We are currently working to collecting the relevant data to meet our future reporting requirements under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive pending changes being made by the EU.

Taskforce on Nature-related Financial Disclosures (TNFD)

We updated our double materiality assessment. This confirmed the findings from our TNFD screening work conducted in 2022 that biodiversity is comparatively a lesser priority issue for Informa.

Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD)

We have fewer climate change risks than many other industries, due to the nature of the knowledge and information economy in which we operate, and the mitigation actions we have in place. We updated our Climate Impacts report (informa.com/climateimpacts) in 2023. Additional information is reported in the TCFD section of our 2024 Annual Report (see pages 74-78).

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