Academic conferences possess a vast reach. They actively boost human engagement by offering several opportunities for research scholars to share ideas, get recognition, and celebrate their work achievements. If you are hosting sustainable conferences, they can create more awareness as well as attract a large audience. With growing global awareness of sustainability, many conference planners are increasingly looking for ways to reduce their environmental impact.
Incorporating sustainable practices in every stage of your academic conference planning and execution process reduces the overall carbon footprint, saves resources, and creates a positive environmental legacy.
If you are a conference organizer who wants to inspire others about sustainability and stay committed to purposeful conference planning practices, then this guide is for you. Let’s explore the importance and the most valuable tips for hosting sustainable conferences.
The Importance of Hosting Sustainable Conferences
From energy consumption to waste generation, from transportation emissions to printed materials, conferences usually possess a huge range of environmental challenges. However, adopting sustainable practices is not just an ethical consideration; it has become an important business practice.
Environmental Responsibility of the Academic Conferences
To host an academic conference, the energy usage begins right from the planning stage. The conference requires significant energy for lighting, sound systems, and climate control, which contributes to several greenhouse gas emissions. To effectively manage this, it is good to switch off lights in empty rooms and spaces whenever they are not in use. Place LED bulbs everywhere and set thermostats to optimal temperatures so that the place is pleasant and doesn’t freeze or sweat.
Large amounts of waste are generated, including food waste, single-use plastics, and packaging materials, posing a significant environmental burden. Mostly use reusable plates and cups. Include calorie counts and let people refill. Offer vegetarian and vegan options on menus. Compost leftovers. Encourage them to bring their own mugs. Label bins such as compost, recycling, and landfill.
The traveling of attendees, equipment, and materials to and from conference venues generates substantial carbon emissions. Similarly, these conferences can consume huge amounts of water for catering, sanitation, and other purposes, mainly large-scale outdoor ones. Provide options for both in-person, hybrid, and virtual conferences. Give options related to lower-carbon forms of transport, such as e-scooters and bicycle rides.
Business and Reputational Benefit
Hosting sustainable conferences elevates the brand image and reputation of the organizing company. It easily positions the company as an eco-friendly, responsible, and socially conscious company. Adopting sustainable practices, such as optimizing energy consumption, reducing waste, managing water usage, and reducing travel emissions, can also result in huge cost savings.
Businesses can easily attract and retain customers who are conscious of the environment. They can expect an increase in customer loyalty and can also develop long-term relationships with them. Hosting a sustainable conference can reap a competitive advantage. The current market is highly competitive; practicing sustainability differentiates your business from the competitors.
Environmental Consciousness of Consumers
The current generation of consumers has become highly aware, especially towards the environment, and prefer businesses and organizations that adopt sustainable measures. They offer their support to them and try to contribute to these measures.
Consumers get attracted to businesses that are transparent about their environmental strategies and are committed to sustainability. The consumers also share their views on social media platforms. They voice out their opinions and spread information. Many times, these practices offer significant benefits to businesses.
Tips to Host a Sustainable Conferences
Hosting a sustainable academic conference is a holistic way to reduce the impact on the environment that is caused by such events. It promotes ethical and responsible practices that offer their social and economic advantages. Some of the important tips to host a sustainable conference are:
Frequent Checks to Identify Enhancements
Perform an in-depth evaluation of the academic conference’s potential environmental effects, such as energy consumption, waste generation, water usage, and transportation emissions. Identify important areas of advancement and pinpoint the findings where aspects related to the environment can be gained. Based on the findings, integrate the green technologies and techniques in the process of conference planning. Now set sustainability goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).
Choose a Venue with Good Public Transport Links
Your choice of venue is among the most essential ways you can make your conference more sustainable. Traveling to and from the conference for attendees and speakers will be the biggest contributor to your conference’s overall carbon footprint. If you’re planning for an international event, where attendees fly from across the world, this also results in air travel emissions.
It is advisable to select a conference venue that has excellent public transport links. Choose a place that is strategically located near the local railway stations. A venue should always be at a place where there is active travel access. The conference attendees should be able to get to the venue without impacting the carbon footprint.
Integration with green technologies and techniques
Make use of LED screens, energy-efficient projectors and lighting, audio-visual tools, and smart climate control systems. Look for more renewable energy sources, such as solar power, to decrease energy consumption. Turn off equipment and systems whenever they are not in use.
Adopt the latest innovative solutions that actively support sustainability. There are several modern tools that make academic conference planning and execution a lot easier. Choose event management software like Dryfta that aligns well with all the sustainability goals. Use apps to quickly update all the eco-friendly measures you take, which allows you to meet the environmental preservation goals and leave a positive impact on the attendees.
Stakeholders’ Engagement
Educate attendees about the environmental effects of the academic conference and encourage them to participate in sustainable measures, such as waste sorting and responsible consumption. Involve volunteers in more efforts, such as waste composting and promoting eco-friendly transportation options.
Collaborate with vendors to adopt sustainable practices in their operations, which include reducing packaging waste and minimizing transportation emissions.
Clearly communicate the academic conference’s sustainability efforts to attendees, sponsors, and the public to raise awareness and build a positive reputation. Various green initiatives help improve the overall attendee experience and promote a culture of sustainability.
Ditch Single-use Visuals
Large, personalized props, banners, posters, and other items with your academic conference’s title and date on them may look appealing, but remember, they can only be used once. These items have a very short lifespan and can’t be reused once the event is over. Pick more generic items and images that are more brand-focused, which can be utilized at numerous conferences and events, year after year.
Go Hybrid or Host a Virtual Conference
Conducting your academic conference on a hybrid or virtual format is becoming a more and more popular way to cut carbon emissions associated especially with travel. There are several ways to well-organize extremely seamless hybrid and virtual events.
In addition to eliminating the requirement for participants to travel, hosting the event in a hybrid and virtual format may allow a far wider range of people to participate. It also boosts ticket sales and, consequently, overall revenue. In hybrid and virtual settings, the sessions can be recorded and can be viewed later, which helps the attendees to access the event content after it’s over.
Sustainable Food and Beverage Choices
There is a lot more consciousness related to diet in the present era than there ever was before. People are following various kinds of diets very strictly. The consumption of food and drink has a huge impact on the environment. Focus on serving fresh, local, and seasonal produce. Get eco-certified labels to serve more sustainable foods, such as free-range, fair trade, and more.
Avoid the use of plastic plates, cutlery, and cups. Aim for providing drinks in returnable or recyclable bottles or cans. Provide tea and coffee in reusable cups or encourage them to bring their own mugs. Avoid giving bottles of water, and instead encourage participants to use water filling stations. Inform the participants to bring their own reusable bottles to fill with water. Place only 100% recyclable materials, and let participants know their proper disposal method.
Mindful Digital Consumption
Though there are several online platforms and apps that act as valuable resources for sustainability efforts, none of them support eco-friendliness. It is very important to be mindful during digital consumption. High-definition video streaming uses substantial data and energy. Request the attendees to reduce the streaming quality and turn off their cameras while not speaking or presenting.
Switching to platforms that offer a low carbon footprint, especially in the video conferencing mode, is quite useful. Communicate wisely when using the digital solutions. Take help from various social media platforms and online newsletters. Choose an event management software that offers cloud-based sharing.
Avoid Paper and Adopt Greener Solutions
Shifting from traditional paper-based methods to greener solutions is the best option. By adopting an event management platform like Dryfta for sending invites and check-in processes, the need for paper invites, registration forms, and name badges is easily eliminated, which decreases the paper usage and its wastage, and streamlines overall event logistics.
Send personalized invitations via email, providing the event details with links to maps and schedules. Develop a dedicated event website or make use of an all-in-one event management app that has the potential to host all event information in one central, easily accessible location.
Adhere to Sustainable Event Standards
Follow the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) or International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 20121:2012, which is an international standard for sustainable event management systems. Following this will benefit all the people involved in the academic conference. This is useful to set targets and create actionable strategies. It also allows monitoring the performance of the full conference management life-cycle.
Offer Giveaways and Prizes
If you want to actively involve attendees and encourage them towards sustainable event practices, then offering giveaways is the best option. Provide giveaway bags that are made of fabric or natural tote bags that can be washed and reused. The products you place in the conference should be durable, eco-certified, and ethically made.
Offer rewards, incentives, and prizes to the sessions, panels, and research scholars who followed an eco-friendly way to showcase their work. Such aspects create a sense of collective responsibility and leave a lasting impact on the people who are involved.
Review, Share, and Progress
Explain all the initiatives you have taken and implemented at the conference and in your promotional and evaluation communications so that people will know what to expect and get inspired.
Ask attendees for feedback and ratings to identify opportunities so that you get to improve as well as make better choices to improve the sustainability options. Openly talk about all the steps that you have considered. Measure the overall environmental impact of the conference and publicly report the conference’s sustainability achievements as well as your future vision.
Small Steps Today for Bigger Impact Tomorrow
‍The increasing environmental awareness among the people has given rise to high expectations for businesses and organizations to adopt sustainability, especially for hosting conferences. Attendees are interested in experiences that align with their values as well as committed to being responsible towards the environment. Hosting sustainable conferences will not only benefit the environment, but it also opens ways for conference planners to look for more innovative solutions that streamline operations, give a positive experience, and offer a lasting impact.