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Environment

The PanSIG conference has had an Environmental officer since 2014, and we have been working to improve the environmental performance of the conference.

This includes local sourcing of sustainable products, reducing waste, and increasing recycling. Since some environmental impact is inevitable, especially from transport, we have also been arranging carbon offsets to compensate for our carbon footprint.

Carbon Offsets

At the 2015 Kobe conference, we collected 38,500 yen from attendees, which we contributed to a solar power generation project in Hyogo Prefecture.

At the 2016 Okinawa conference, we collected 74,000 yen from attendees, which we contributed to coral protection projects via Okinawa Prefecture Environmental Science Center.

At the 2017 Akita conference, we collected 70,000 yen from attendees, which we contributed to a forest project in Yokote city.

For the 2018 Tokyo conference, due to closer tracking of transportation-related emissions, we were able to get a more accurate, though higher, footprint estimate. This improved system will be used for future PanSIG calculations.

The following are estimates of the emissions of carbon dioxide equivalent for recent conferences.

CO2 Emmissions for PanSIG
Year Venue People CO2 (tonnes) Offset %
2014 Miyazaki 250 47 N/A1
2015 Kobe 300 32 12%
2016 Okinawa 400 195 23%
2017 Akita 340 49 12%
2018 Tokyo 465 122.9 6%
2019 Nishinomiya 465 119.2 5.8%

[1] PanSIG began donating to environmental projects from 2015.

Five things you can do

  1. Think about the four R's: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Refuse
  2. Bring your own water bottle, coffee mug, reusable chopsticks
  3. Consider eating a vegetarian meal
  4. Bring a notebook and pen
  5. Bring your own toothbrush

Environmental initiatives for PanSIG2018

  • Incentivizing use of travel mugs;
  • Plenary gifting of travel mugs;
  • Reduced number of trash receptacles and notifying people to be mindful of the amount of trash they produce;
  • Forgoing conference bags;
  • Allowing participants to opt out of paper handbooks (in favor of a digital one);
  • Buying food in bulk to reduce packaging;
  • Offering vegetarian food options;
  • Buying food that is organic or sustainable where possible;
  • Using sustainable products when consumption is unavoidable (stirrers, food containers, spoons);
  • T-shirts for student volunteers are made from recycled textile materials;
  • Encouraging participants to return conference lanyards to reduce loss/waste;
  • Asking poster presenters to use sustainable material.

References