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.
カーボンオフセット
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 Envrionmental Science Center.
At the 2017 Akita conference, we collected 70,000 yen from attendees, which we contributed to a forest project in Yokote city.
The following are estimates of the emissions of carbon dioxide equivalent for recent conferences.
Year Venue | People | CO2 (tonnes) | Offset % |
---|---|---|---|
2014 Miyazaki | 250 | 47 | N/A |
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% |
Five things you can do
- Think about the four R's: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Refuse
- Bring your own water bottle, coffee mug, reusable chopsticks
- Consider eating a vegetarian meal
- Bring a notebook and pen
- 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
- My Climate
- Green JALT blog
- Greening PanSIG (The 2015 PanSIG Journal, pp. 23-30)
- David Suzuki: Top 10 ways you can stop climate change