As a conference, we are not climate neutral. However, we can choose to lower our impact on the environment as much as possible. Inspired by the 8 R’s (Recycle - Refuse - Reduce - Reuse - Repair - Regift - Recover - Rethink), this is what we do for now:
We plan our venue visits and meetings as much as possible by train.
Where possible we book trains instead of flights for our international speakers.
We’re looking into the options of offsetting the booked flights.
We advise our participants to come by train if possible. Amsterdam has good train connections to Brussels, London, Paris,...
We look for venues that are easily reachable by public transport (which is also important because of accessibility).
We provide shuttle busses between the hotel and the venue. For those who are up to it, we provide the option to rent bikes at our cost at the hotel, to take the 15min bike route to the venue.
Our conference venue, the Meervaart, is working hard on being sustainable themselves by working on CO2-reduction (More info about their efforts here).
Our speakers hotel, the West Cord Fashion Hotel, focuses on sustainability and has a Green Key Label (More info here).
We offer a minimum of 50% vegetarian food (and vegan is available upon request). We try to provide a very balanced buffet, but we prefer chicken over meat and we refrain from food like tuna etc.
We closely estimate our food amount through a careful headcount to minimise waste. We create awareness with our attendees to not throw away food. We are looking into the options of donating leftover food.
Drinks are offered in porcelain and glassware. We provide water bottles with tap water.
We provide bio straws (we can offer plastic straws for those who need it for accessibility reasons).
We discussed thoroughly with our caterer the use of reusable plates. However, for this year, we are not able to provide all of our food on reusable plates. Where needed, we will use 100% biodegradable disposables that compost within 90 days and therefore meet the EN13432 standard. Of course, the sustainable use of disposables depends on a good collection and recycling.
During the conference we optimize waste processing and recycling.
We will have separate trash cans with bio compostable garbage bags, for all compostables. We also have separate paperbins.
We strive to communicate as much as possible online. The internet has a large footprint and it is growing rapidly. Our website is cleaner than 58% of websites tested, but we’re working on getting a better number.
We use a lot of materials but we try to reuse where possible (for example lanyards, staff shirts,...).
Where possible, we order recycled paper (for post its, flyers,...).
We are looking into the options of recycling our banners.
Our totebags are fair trade and made of recycled bio cotton.
Our T-shirts are 100% bio cotton.
Our totebags and Tshirts are produced by StanleyStella, who believe that fair trade and sustainable development are natural. (More info here)
For the prints on the Tshirts and totebags we work with Groenewas, who print sustainable without chemical ink. (More info here)
We are aware that these are only small steps. We try to be more aware and adapt where we can. But if you have any tips for us, please get in touch!