G of G Inc., an experiential staffing and brand ambassador agency, approaches sustainability from a different place than most of the events industry. Conversations about the topic tend to focus on the big, visible things: the materials used to build an installation, the packaging around a product sample, the trucks idling outside a convention center. Those are real concerns, but they belong mostly to event producers and brand marketers.
A staffing company’s footprint looks different. The questions are quieter and more operational: Who is flying where, and does that trip need to happen? Are the same people moving from city to city when qualified local professionals could take those roles instead? Is a printed document being sent when an email would do the same job?
Founded in Toronto in 2009 by Jennifer Hing, G of G Inc. is now in its 17th year, with offices in Toronto, New York, and San Diego, and staff campaigns across Canada and the United States. It operates as a boutique-style agency with national reach, which means its decisions about sustainability are practical ones made close to the ground, not policies handed down from a large corporate structure.
“Sustainability is something we think about in a very practical way,” said Jennifer Hing, the company’s founder.
What Sustainability Actually Means for G of G Inc.
Hing is deliberate about drawing a distinction between what a staffing company can influence and what falls outside its scope. The physical environment of an event, the branded materials, the production build-out: those decisions belong to the client and the production team. But G of G Inc. shapes how people move, how teams are built, and how information is shared. Those choices add up.
“Because we’re a staffing company rather than an event-production company, our environmental footprint and our opportunities to influence an activation look different from those of a company manufacturing an entire event environment,” Hing explained.
That framing is important. It keeps the company from making claims that don’t belong to it, and it keeps the focus on the decisions that are genuinely within its control. The result is a set of operating habits that are modest in description but consistent in practice.
“We try to build responsible practices into the way we operate and the way we advise and staff programs,” Hing said.
Reducing Waste in the Day-to-Day
Some of G of G Inc.’s sustainability choices are straightforward. The company avoids unnecessary printing and uses digital communication wherever it works.
The approach extends to procurement decisions. When G of G Inc. has a choice between vendors and partners, the company looks at whether those partners operate with a similar sense of responsibility.
“That includes reducing unnecessary waste, being thoughtful about materials and supplies, avoiding unnecessary printing where digital communication will work, and working with vendors and partners who share a similar commitment when those choices are available to us,” Hing said.
These aren’t dramatic measures. But they reflect a consistent orientation: look at what the company actually controls, and make the more responsible choice there. That consistency is more useful in practice than a policy that sounds impressive on paper but doesn’t reach into everyday operations.
Local Staffing, Smarter Travel and Team Continuity
One of the more tangible ways G of G Inc. applies sustainability thinking is in how it builds teams for touring programs, the kind of multi-city campaigns that move across North America over days or weeks.
Keeping a core traveling team together from market to market has its logic: the team knows the program and has worked together before. But it can mean added travel and lodging, and the environmental impact of moving people long distances.
G of G Inc. approaches touring programs differently. “When a campaign travels through multiple cities, staffing locally whenever possible can reduce unnecessary travel and lodging while also giving the client people who understand that market,” Hing said.
That’s a practical argument as much as an environmental one. A brand ambassador who lives in the city where an event is happening knows the local context. They may speak the community’s language, understand its culture, and read the room in ways that a traveling staffer from another market simply can’t. Local staffing isn’t just a responsible choice; it’s often a better one for the event itself.
For programs that do require continuity across multiple days in the same location, G of G Inc. takes a complementary approach. “For multi-day programs, we also try to keep the same team members together when it makes operational sense. That is good for continuity, but it can also eliminate unnecessary movement of people,” Hing said.
The logic is simple. Moving people in and out of a program unnecessarily creates disruption for the client and additional logistical complexity. Keeping a stable team in place serves everyone: the client gets consistency, the staff develops deeper familiarity with the program, and the company avoids the waste that comes from constant personnel shuffling.
Why Diversity and Inclusion Belong in the Same Conversation
Hing doesn’t separate environmental sustainability from the broader question of how a company treats people. For G of G Inc., those commitments belong together, and both are built into how the company staffs programs and advises clients.
“We also believe sustainability extends beyond environmental issues,” she said.
That view shapes how G of G Inc. builds its roster. The company maintains a diverse network of brand ambassadors across North America, and when staffing a market, it looks to build teams that reflect the communities a campaign is engaging, alongside skills and experience.
Clients can benefit too: staff who reflect and understand the community an activation serves can help a campaign feel more relevant to attendees.
“We have always included diversity, inclusion and sustainability expectations in our client and staffing processes because we don’t think those should be separate from the way a company operates,” Hing said.
Responsibility as an Operating Standard, Not an Add-On
What G of G Inc. is describing, across its travel decisions, its digital-first habits, its vendor choices, and its approach to team diversity, is not a sustainability program layered on top of a business. It’s a set of operating standards built into the business itself.
For brands planning experiential campaigns, that matters. Event staffing touches every moment of the attendee experience. The people representing a brand in the field are the brand, as far as the consumer is concerned. Choosing a staffing partner that thinks carefully about who those people are, how they’re deployed, and what their presence signals is a meaningful part of campaign planning, not an afterthought.
G of G Inc. has spent 17 years building the processes, the roster, and the client relationships that make this kind of thoughtful staffing possible. The sustainability practices described here aren’t new additions to the company’s approach. They’re the same values, applied consistently, and made more explicit over time.
For Hing, the point is simple: sustainability, diversity and inclusion are part of how the business runs. After 17 years, that is how G of G Inc. continues to operate.
