With 105 world leaders coming in for the UN Climate Change Summit, which runs from today to Dec. 17 in Denmark, it’d be easy for the conference to have a hefty carbon footprint. It seems those running the COP15 conference are keen to avoid the irony of a global conference, which is aiming to save the earth from catastrophic effects of climate change, producing undue carbon in the process.
Perhaps there’s something to learn from their strategies for running your own green meeting, trade or consumer show or a conference.
- Conference delegates will get a free public transportation pass to use throughout the summit. Apparently the Copenhagen metro system was recently voted the best in the world, making it the most efficient way to travel in terms of both time and carbon. Armoured cars will still be used for world leaders, of course.
- Rather than giving gift bags at the summit, Denmark is using the money they would have spent (approx. $700,000) on a climate scholarship for 10-12 students around the world to complete a 2-year Masters program at a Danish university.
- Tap water will be distributed at the conference; plastic bottles won’t be provided. Sounds like BYORWB (bring your own reuseable water bottle) is the order of the day!
- Over 3,500 hotel rooms reserved for conference visitors have a certificate in sustainable hotel management.
- There is a 55-metre windmill right next to the conference centre for the ultimate in local renewable energy. For the rest of us, perhaps we could purchase power for our events from a renewable energy supplier.
- To top it off, COP15 will offset their C02 emissions from delegate visits, local transportation, the conference centre itself by creating 20 new brickworks facilities in Dhaka, Bangladesh. According to this site, the new technology used will “reduce coal consumption during brick production by 50 percent… and emit an annual 100,000 tonnes less CO2 into the atmosphere than the old kilns.”
To listen to Jan-Christoph Napierski, Head of Sustainability at the conference, describe the challenges in reducing the impact of the event, click here.
Have you taken steps to reduce waste in your meetings and events?
