A Greener Conference
We aimed to reduce the environmental impacts of this event and promote a greener conference. A few highlights:
- Supply chain — We worked with two major sub-contractors, Mirror Productions (conference design) and Branded (event management), to ensure that all aspects of production followed good environmental practice. Mirror ensured that recycled and recyclable materials were used in the physical design elements (e.g. backdrops). Conference decorations were raffled at the end of the day. Branded developed a green conference policy based on guidelines for sustainable event management published by the British Standards organization. Paper signage, programmes and printed material were printed on FSC stock and then recycled. Badges were collected for re-use. All audio-visual equipment was obtained on hire basis. No lighting was brought in by the production company. Lights were kept at lower setting during set-up time. Foam soap used by HKCEC to minimize wastage. Signs in bathrooms encouraged delegates to minimize waste.
- Venue — This was the first time the Hong Kong Convention & Exhibition Centre had been involved with an event that had sustainable event management as an objective. We believe this type of service will become more and more sought after, especially for international conferences.
- Conference lunch menu was vegetarian. Where possible, it was locally sourced and/or organic. It was non-GM. All coffee and tea was fair-trade. Food was catered in accordance with the numbers of delegates registered. Unfortunately composting was not available at the venue (or majority HK venues). No bottled water was provided.
- Promotion occurred via electronic flyers and notices rather than printed materials and posters. The website provided delegates with information about public transport.
- Conference handout materials were limited to a folded A3 programme and a single A4 map of breakout rooms, both printed on recycled paper. No other products, kits, bags or gifts were produced for delegates.
- The carbon profile was estimated and offset for international flights (75 tonnes CO2-equivalent) and electricity consumption at the venue (2.5 tonnes CO2-equivalent). Offsetting is not a substitute for avoiding emissions; however, we made a decision that some sort of action by way of offsetting was better than none at all. For the offset purchase, we sought an organization that contributed to projects in China and that managed its projects in line with the WWF Gold Standard for non-forestry projects or the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance’s CCB Standard for biodiversity/forestry projects. We purchased offsets from the globally-respected environmental organization, Conservation International that, amongst its suite of international projects, supports a project called "Protecting Biodiversity in Tengchong, China", which aims to establish a mixed forest buffer zone around the Gaoligonshan Nature Reserve.