The conference is working towards limiting its impact on the environment through careful consumption of energy and resources. This includes, among others, electronically circulating meeting materials, not producing unnecessary conference materials and choosing environmentally-friendly and socially-friendly products, as well as providing healthy food and hosting meetings and social events in central locations.
Some of the things the venue (ACC) do
- Uses LED lighting across the campus
- Collects rainwater on the roof of the building, accounting for 40% of the water used for flushing toilets within the arena.
- Facilitate clients to donate leftover items from conferences and exhibitions to local community groups.
- Provide clients with environmentally friendly preferred suppliers.
- Developed a waste strategy that has seen the introduction of a cardboard bailer, which means that they do not send any cardboard to recycling.
- Installed dispensers throughout the arena that will drastically reduce the use of single use plastic throughout the venue.
- Moved to entirely digital tickets cutting down paper usage.
- Opened new vegetarian and vegan outlets in the arena, providing more sustainable options to audiences.
- Eliminated food waste by using an ORCA anaerobic digester which breaks anything that can't be donated to the community into a liquid that is disposed of via our sewage system.
- Introduced a cycle to work scheme to encourage employees to consider alternative modes of transport.
- Are a carbon neutral venue campus
- Are 100% renewable energy certified
- Send ZERO waste to landfill
- Use no single-use plastics in our Convention Centre
- Has an in-house team that provides every event with a carbon measurement report, which will measure the footprint of on-site activities. Event organisers can then use these learnings to implement positive changes at any future events.
Some of the things the RCGP do
The hotels and social events are all located on the event campus or in the city centre and you can walk between them all.
The venue provides waste separation bins in the conference area.
We are using reusable crockery instead of disposable coffee cups at the conference. At very busy periods, when not possible, the venue may make use of single-use paper recyclable cups to manage demand. These are 100% compostable.
For a number of years we have been providing facilities to refill water bottles. We will no longer supply single-use plastic water bottles.
Printed materials are kept to a minimum. We have reduced the printed programme book down to a fold-out pocket guide. The full conference proceedings can be found on the conference app. We will continue to offer a pocket guide at registration, for those who want one. However, we will be steadily reducing the numbers ordered each year. We also reuse (handing out unmarked returned copies to delegates) and recycle all returned copies of the pocket guide.
All marketing materials promoting the event are conducted electronically.
Conference registration is entirely online, and booking confirmations are electronic.
Conference delegate badges made of paper (FSC certified) and no plastic badge wallets are used.
We reuse conference lanyards.
We are working with sponsors and exhibitors to minimise materials they, or delegates, dispose of whilst at the conference.
Some of the things you can do, as a visitor
- The venue is located in the city centre, all hotels and social venues are located by walking distance from each other – walk and explore the city, use public transportation or the city bikes instead of taking taxis.
- If you can’t avoid flying, please note that there are excellent bus shuttles running from the airport to the city centre.
- Calculate your carbon footprint using the WWF environmental footprint calculator. Whether you’re able to attend or not, it’s a great tool for tracking your impact on the planet, and learning about what changes you can make to limit it.
- Please make sure to deposit your lanyard and badge in the reuse boxes provided at conference registration.
- Please follow the waste separation instructions at the venue.
- There will be water fountains at key points, please bring a reusable water bottle with you.
- Be thoughtful about all conference-related printing that you do, and aim to reduce this where possible.
- Pens and paper will not be provided to delegates to encourage the re-use of both paper and pens. Delegates should bring notepads made from scrap paper.
- Alternatively, use the ‘notes’ feature on the digital conference platform instead of using a pen and paper to take notes. This feature will allow users to add personal notes for each session and email a copy as a spreadsheet.
