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Green Meeting Policy (2007 Conference)
New EPA Green Meetings and Conferences Policy, May 1, 2007
The mission of the EPA is to protect human health and the environment. We expect that all Agency meetings and conferences will be staged using as many environmentally preferable measures as possible. Environmentally preferable means products or services that have a lesser or reduced effect on the environment when compared with competing products or services that serve the same purpose.As in past years, the planning committee did many things to help make the Community Involvement and Training Conference more earth-friendly, and we recruited attendees' help to make the 10-year anniversary conference one of the greenest ever. Here are things that we requested of attendees:
Review the conference booklet before you leave for Jacksonville!
We elected to not distribute paper copies of the conference booklet. Instead, we made reference copies available in session rooms, break areas, and at the registration desk, and an electronic copy was available on a common computer in the registration area. Keep in mind that eliminating the printed conference booklet saved more than 18,400 sheets of paper!
Bring your own bag to tote your conference materials
Instead of providing participants with tote bags, we offered a "tote bag exchange." We invited attendees to bring an extra tote bag to exchange with others. This also provided an opportunity for other conference hosts to give away extra bags from their past conferences.
Share a ride from the airport
We offered a ride-sharing program as part of the registration process. This allowed people to opt-in to the ride-share program. After providing their arrival time, they were matched with people arriving at a similar time. If just 100 people share rides to and from the airport, we’ll reduce the conference’s carbon footprint by more than 1,000 pounds!
- We provided recycling containers and encouraged attendees to recycle newspapers, cans, and glass, including those from their guest room, in marked containers in the conference area
- Encouraged registrants to participate in the hotel's water, energy, and detergent conservation efforts by following the instructions posted in your room
- Highlighted the conference's efforts to reduce the use of paper by limiting conference handouts at registration, using folders or handouts printed on high post-consumer recycled content paper using vegetable-based ink, and encouraging presenters to limit handouts