Field and Flourish: The Future of Sustainable Event Planning
How South African engineer, Bathandile Mthombeni, is driving an eco-friendly event movement
Whether it is a birthday party, graduation celebration, or wedding, planning a function has always been a game of juggling your budget in such a way that you get the most value for the least amount of money possible. If we are honest, this need to maximize on our budget has often pushed us to spend more than required. We have the resources. Why not use them? Thus, our events become excessive. We might buy too much food; spend too much on fuel for way too many cars; or sprinkle too much plastic confetti around the venue. Consequently, our event costs expand from being exclusively monetary to environmental.
According to the Event Manager Blog, the average event attendee produces almost 2 kg of waste. There are companies that are laboring to change this narrative, however. As a South African native, Field and Flourish, an event planning business based in Johannesburg, caught my attention with its environmentally-friendly message. The company works with clients to create affordable, eco-friendly celebrations that will still have your aunties staying on the dancefloor past midnight. All this is achieved through partnering with local vendors, businesses, and charities. Such relationships allow Field and Flourish to source eco-friendly décor in addition to finding alternative solutions for left-over food, and waste. These are much needed changes to the world of event planning.
“What we strive to do is to be as sustainable as possible by reducing our lasting impact on the environment, while making a strong impact in our communities,” elaborated its founder and creative director, Bathandile Mthombeni, when I contacted her for an interview. The Welkom native went on to discuss her entrepreneurial journey. Before Field and Flourish’s inception in 2020, Mthombeni — a qualified civil engineer — had an established career in consulting. Sporadically, friends, family, and colleagues would reach out to her whenever they needed assistance with events. Mthombeni was eventually recruited by a previous employer to plan a corporate function, marking her first monumental “gig”. But, an abundance of talent and opportunity does not mean her path was without challenges.
In December 2019, a traumatic car accident left Mthombeni with severe injuries. Her doctors told her that she would never walk ,or even speak, again. It is a miracle that, after a few months of rehabilitation, she is now able to speak. With therapy and support, her mobility continues to improve. Bathandile believes mental health care, faith, and community aided her in overcoming these hurdles. Moreover, she experiences a renewed sense of purpose, zeal, and an appreciation of life. All this energy served as the catalyst for her brainchild, Field and Flourish. “I started Field and Flourish from a place of immediacy,” she revealed, “from a place of just, well I suppose, wanting God to use me”
And, it seems her resilience propels the success of the company further, while pushing her own career into new territories. Bathandile was one of the few candidates chosen to participate in MIT’s 2020 Innovation Leadership Bootcamp. Furthermore, she recently became one of McKinsey and Company’s Next Generation Women Leaders as well as a WomEng (Women In Engineering) Project Manager. Mthombeni has managed to to achieve all this while continuing to grow Field and Flourish.
Bathandile Mthombeni’s Field and Flourish exhibits how the Green Movement is evolving. More than that, it demonstrates how young, vibrant, African engineers can drive innovation in creative fields such as event planning. Evidently, the global community is realizing sustainability goes beyond lifestyle changes within our households. Field and Flourish just serves as a reminder of the importance of shifting our approach to hosting celebrations. They aim to reassure us that events can be both eco-conscious and enjoyable. All we need to do is think ethically during each moment, even as we plan the special ones.
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Listen to my full interview with Bathandile Mthombeni here.
