[OSGeo-Conf] Awake some awareness on leaving waste and raise our CO2 footprint after F4G events

Tue Jul 25 23:19:20 PDT 2017

Hi Till,

it's my concern too, thanks for rising it

j

On Tue, 25 Jul 2017, 18:15 Till Adams, <till.adams at fossgis.de> wrote:

> Hi Michael, @ConfCOmm,
>
> many thanks for the many contributions! Didn't expect that much response
> in such a short time ;-).
>
> I've drafted a first text about this in the FOss4G Handbook here:
>
>
> https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/FOSS4G_Handbook#On_Site:_Avoid_waste_and_CO2_footprint
>
>
> Feel free to change/add/comment!
>
> Till
>
> Am 25.07.2017 um 13:50 schrieb Michael Terner:
>
> Just some quick comments from the Boston team. I think it is fair to say
> that we have an environmental awareness and are doing what we can. Some
> things we can control, other things are controlled by the venue. But here
> is some of what we're looking at (and we do support guidance to future
> LOCs):
>
>    - We are going +/- "paperless" for our program. Our web/phone app is
>    already downloadable from the website.
>    - Our gala will be using single-use but compostable place
>    settings/utensils (our Aquarium, the gala site, is extremely eco-aware and
>    eco-friendly)
>    - Massachusetts has a strong "bottle bill" and all drink cans/bottles
>    will be recycled as there is a $.05 return to be collected
>    - We are in the process of finalizing a simple, practical, affordable
>    attendee gifts including a reusable water bottle (loved the twitter chatter
>    on the success of the GeoCat water bottle) and and a simple, reusable
>    shopping bag; both of which can be used both at the conference and after
>    - Jeroen's point is the most complicated. It is totally fair to
>    observe that a summer conference interferes with the European vacation
>    norm. But September interferes with the start of the North American
>    academic year and it is difficult to travel during the start of the school
>    year. And, September costs are significantly higher than in the summer in
>    North America. There is no perfect time, and there will always be
>    difficulties for some in making it to FOSS4G. I think it will be tricky to
>    "bake in" that FOSS4G adapts to one particular community's schedule over
>    others'. In other words, my perspective is that it should remain up to
>    Conference Dev to choose the best proposal that balances timing and costs
>    and the creativity of the LOC. Would it be terrible if some of the
>    conferences are in Aug, and others in Sept, or Oct? By moving around within
>    a window then each community has some conferences in the rotation that may
>    be easier, or harder to attend.
>
> We are looking forward to seeing many of you in Boston; and also to seeing
> the new Call for Proposals for Europe 2019.
>
> MT
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 25, 2017 at 6:16 AM, Till Adams <till.adams at fossgis.de> wrote:
>
>> +1
>>
>> I can start woth this these days if okay.
>>
>> (I already know of two teams, that are more or less waiting for the call)
>>
>> Till
>>
>> Am 24.07.2017 um 22:05 schrieb Steven Feldman:
>>
>> We have to start preparing the call for 2019 soon.
>>
>> Let’s update the RfP doc to include an environmental section. I expect
>> there are several changes that will need to be made, perhaps a separate
>> thread on the mailing list to gather suggestions
>> ______
>> Steven
>>
>>
>> On 24 Jul 2017, at 14:09, Till Adams <till.adams at fossgis.de> wrote:
>>
>> Dear ConfComm!
>>
>> There is one issue I'd like to mention and perhaps this is also a topic
>> on that we, as a responsible community, should adress to.
>>
>> Recently I've been to FOSS4G Europe in Paris and I recognized, that a
>> lot of one-way cups and non-returnable bottles were offered during
>> breaks. Thinking back to F4G Europe in Como in 2015 there was even
>> single-use tableware offered for lunch.
>>
>> To make that clear: My goal is not to ask the organizers of the named
>> conferences for justification !!! Both conferences have been phantastic
>> events!
>>
>> I'd like more to awake our environmental awareness somehow:
>>
>> We also had this issue on a FOSSGIS few years ago; a lot of single-use
>> stuff was used for break-caterings. Since this conference, we ask
>> organizers to only offer recycable tableware and bottles on
>> FOSSGIS-conferences.
>>
>>
>> When on the one side one of the goals of our community is to contribute
>> to a better world, it makes not much sense, when we leave amounts of
>> waste behind us and have a raising CO2-footprint after every of our
>> events.
>>
>> For Bonn we decided not to offer any non-recycable stuff, we also asked
>> attendees to balance their CO2-emmission because of flights on a
>> voluntary base (eg. atmosfair). To be honest, I don't know if anybody
>> did, but at least we tried.
>>
>> Maybe that's because I am german and although we sell fraudulent
>> diesel-cars, we have a favour for recycable bottles, cans and everything
>> (even French winemakers put a green dot on their bottles, to indicate,
>> that they are recycable in Germany ;-)) and I also know, that it is
>> often not that easy to have this offer in other countries as well - but:
>>
>> How about adding a topic "Environmental Responsibility" to our
>> "Conference Manual" and encourage future LOC's to have an enhanced eye
>> on these kind of topics? We also might request that future bids include
>> an abstract on how to handle this issue based on the local
>> possibilities. It's up to every ConfComm-member, how to include that
>> into his/her voting.
>>
>>
>> Till
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>>
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>
>
>
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> *Executive Vice President*
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