TerraPass blog

Counting the carbon from your conference

Pete Davies | June 30, 2008

How big is your event’s carbon footprint? Find out with our latest calculator.

 

We’re excited to announce a new calculator on the TerraPass website — the event and conference carbon calculator.

Many of you have been asking for this and we know that it will help individuals and businesses to understand better the impacts of parties, conferences and other events, large or small.

We’ve tried to make this calculator simple to use: just a handful of inputs, and you don’t need comprehensive information about your attendees’ travel plans.

Once you’ve calculated the footprint of your event, think about how you can lower its impact. A few thoughts from the TerraPass team:

  • Move it to a place that doesn’t need such long flights to get to. Hawaii’s nice… but it’s far away
  • Don’t invite so many people
  • Keep the menus low-carbon by sourcing local food for meals, and limit the beef!
  • Avoid disposable plates and drinks containers… a reusable bottle is a great conference gift!
  • Try not to have the event at all. Tele-conferencing is cheap and gets better every day. We use GoToMeeting and pick up awards via Skype.

Got any more ideas? Post them in the comments below.

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Comments


  • 1. By Anonymous on July 2, 2008 7:06 AM

    Use water from pitchers and paper cups, if at all (no more bottled water).

    Provide recycle bins.

    Make the "giveaways" optional.


    Reply
  • 2. By Karen on July 2, 2008 3:05 PM

    Here are some more ideas:

    * Provide information about public transportation for those that are new to the area.
    * Provide information about local eco-friendly hotels. This also acts as an incentive for hotels to implement green practices (since they could be loosing $ to lots of green conference attendees.)
    * Provide a recycling bin for people to recycle their name tags at the end of the conference.
    * Provide eco-friendly, reusable conference bags that can double as grocery bags after the conference.
    * Give away a prize for the person that gets to the conference in the most eco-friendly way.
    * Give left over conference bags that people don't use to a charity.

    Btw, I helped to green my professional organization's conference this year. Here's a link to the website: http://www.sustainablechi.org/


    Reply
  • 3. By Suresh Kumar on July 13, 2008 10:27 PM

    Great Service. However every conference I go to, I get so many unnecessary documents, brochures, gifts,free items, most of which are not really useful. It will be great if vendors can aviod this waste by providing all information in a e-brochure or on a USB drive. That will be a big step towards sustainability.
    Keep in coming.
    Suresh Kumar
    EarthLovers.net


    Reply

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