What EWEA is doing
EWEA is very much aware of the increasing necessity to provide an intelligent response to climate change and related environmental crises. EWEA is happy to see that EWEC is growing every year, but also recognises that events like ours have a high impact on the environment. This is why EWEA has decided to take a number of measures in order to reduce the environmental impact of our future events.
EWEA would like to share with you the measures we have put in place to make EWEC 2009 more environmentally friendly and to ensure that the ecological footprint of all our future events is as small as possible. We also suggest some steps which you can take to reduce your impacts as individual and to help us reach our environmental goals.
Through these combined actions, we are certain that EWEC can be:
“The most sustainable event in the global energy industry”
EWEA:
Uses electronic correspondence as much as possible with limited hard copy mailings.
- All delegates and visitors register online or onsite through an electronic registration system. No exchange of hard copies is involved.
- All conference abstracts are submitted online, they are reviewed using an online system and applicants are notified of the outcome of their submission by e-mail. Hard copies are not used at all.
- Has created an online exhibitor manual, in order to process the majority of orders via online forms and reduce the use of hard copies as much as possible.
- Provides the conference proceedings electronically through our website instead of sending out individual copies to each conference delegate.
- Purchases environmentally-friendly materials for the conference including:
Delegate bags made of recycled PET water bottles
Exhibitor bags made of recycled PET water bottles
Pens made of vegetable matter
Notepads made from recycled paper and carton
- Prints all publications using chlorine free and FSC certified paper and vegetable based ink.
- EWEA takes into account the suppliers` and partners` Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) policies when appointing them, and tries to bring maximum benefit to local businesses in the host city.
- Works closely with the subcontracted agencies or suppliers and informs them of EWEA´s environmental concerns and requirements:
Hotels: Works with the conference hotels to find out what environmentally friendly projects are implemented. Encourages delegates to participate in the hotel’s environmental projects.
Catering: EWEA takes the environmentally friendly policies of potential caterers into consideration when selecting the event caterer. EWEA tries to maximise the use of reusable cutlery, use environmentally friendly disposable materials and encourages the caterer to use locally produced food. “Helen Traiteur”, the caterer selected for EWEC 2009, is ISO 9001 certified, which is an internationally recognised standard for an organisation’s internal Quality Management. “Helen Traiteur” also has a sustainable development programme in place which ensures the implementation of environmentally friendly practices and the use of local products.
Helen Traiteur will reuse or clean all table cloths used for EWEC 2009, instead of using through away paper table cloths.
Stand constructor: EWEA has selected Melville as the official stand constructor. Melville is committed to using environmentally friendly products whenever possible and has already undertaken concrete actions such as using recyclable carpet, SmartWire, Soya inks for all graphics, etc. Melville is also working with suppliers to encourage development and availability of more eco-friendly and cost effective alternatives in anticipation of the introduction of the new industry standard in environmental issues (BS 8901).
- EWEA offsets the CO2 emissions produced by air travel of all EWEA staff.
- Outside of its events, EWEA is working towards implementing environmentally-friendly practices to improve the association’s daily office activities in order to minimise environmental impact. Furthermore, the EWEA offices are located in the Renewable Energy House, a 140 year-old building which has been refurbished so as to minimise its energy consumption and to explore different methods for integrating renewable energy technologies, making it a 100% renewable energy building.
Travel: 95% of EWEA staff will travel to Marseille by train in order to avoid the high level of CO2 emissions caused by airplanes.
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