Speaker communications & media policy
Our commitment
At Sustainability Business Live, our priority is to create an environment where senior business leaders can share practical experiences and insights with confidence.
We recognise that many organisations have corporate communications policies regarding conference participation. Accordingly, we will always give greater consideration to a speaker's preferences than to requests for media access.
This policy is intended to provide speakers and their organisations with confidence that Sustainability Business Live takes a measured and practical approach to managing media access, while recognising the realities of hosting a large public business event.
Our media policy
As a general policy, Sustainability Business Live does not invite mainstream news organisations or other external media to attend the event.
The only media invited are our Official Industry Media Partners, which are specialist trade publications that support the event and report on industry developments, innovation and professional best practice.
Examples of our Official Industry Media Partners include:
- Sustainability Matters
- Energy Matters
- Energy Source & Distribution
- Accountants Daily
Any media organisation that is not an Official Industry Media Partner is not invited to attend, and we actively manage registrations to ensure that known representatives of those organisations are not admitted to the event.
Session access preferences
To assist with planning, speakers may nominate one of the following session access preferences.
Open
- Official Industry Media Partners may attend.
- Standard event photography and audience Q&A apply.
Managed
- Official Industry Media Partners are not admitted to the session.
- Interviews only with the speaker's prior approval.
- Optional removal of audience Q&A.
Private
- Official Industry Media Partners are not admitted to the session.
- No audience Q&A.
- No organiser photography or videography.
- Event staff and moderators briefed accordingly.
Where a speaker selects either a Managed or Private session, our Official Industry Media Partners are advised in advance that the session is not open to media attendance. As valued long-term partners of Sustainability Business Live, they have agreed to respect and comply with these access arrangements.
These arrangements are managed discreetly. We do not publicly identify or promote sessions as having special media restrictions, as drawing attention to such arrangements can unintentionally encourage curiosity or attempts to circumvent them. Our objective is simply to manage each session professionally and in accordance with the speaker's wishes.
Practical considerations
Sustainability Business Live is expected to welcome more than 3,000 attendees from corporate Australia, government, councils, academia and industry.
All attendees are required to register before attending the event, and we actively manage registrations to support our media policy. However, no organiser of a large public conference can realistically guarantee that every attendee's profession or intentions are known, or that a journalist has not registered as a standard delegate.
Accordingly, while we take all reasonable steps to prevent unauthorised media attendance and to manage access in accordance with a speaker's nominated session preference, we cannot provide an absolute guarantee that a representative of the media will not be present.
Similarly, it is not practical to prevent attendees from taking notes, discussing presentations with colleagues or sharing general observations on professional social media platforms such as LinkedIn or other online channels. This is a reality of any modern public business conference.
Our recommendation
We encourage speakers to participate with confidence while exercising the same professional judgement they would use when presenting at any major public business conference. Presentations should avoid confidential, commercially sensitive or market-sensitive information.
If additional precautions are required, speakers may nominate a Managed or Private session, request that audience Q&A be removed, or ask that organiser photography and videography not take place.
Our commitment is straightforward: Sustainability Business Live does not actively invite mainstream news organisations, we actively manage media attendance in accordance with this policy, and where a speaker has concerns regarding media access, we will always place the speaker's preferences ahead of media access and take all reasonable steps to manage the session accordingly.