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TAKE ONLY YOUR MEMORIES, LEAVE ONLY YOUR (NON-CARBON) EOOTPRINTS

Beyond the folk dancing, have the Greens got something to teach us about conferencing? by Adelia Hallett

he Green Party has been doing it for years - sustainable conferencing. While the television cameras have tended to focus on the folk dancing and woolly jerseys, behind the scenes has been a carefully thought-out and executed plan to minimise the environmental impact of the annual bash. And while it is core business for politicians whose mission it is to save the planet, there are sound bottom-line benefits too. lust one conference can blow your company's carbon budget.

"Big conferences can generate 2000 tonnes of carbon," says the head of Landcare's carboNZero programme, Ann Smith. "That's as much as many large companies generate in a whole year." Generating excess carbon is about to cost us money, and not just in carbon emissions charges. In Europe, people are starting to ask questions about the environmental viability of flitting between countries for events (the British environmental journai-

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ist George Monbiot was denied the prize money for winning Italy's Pernio Mazzotti Prize for literature after he announced that his personal commitment to giving up virtually all flying meant he wouldn't be at the awards ceremony). Images of executives heading off for luxury meetings in exotic places are definitely not the public relations look of the 21st century. But ust going cold turkey and cutting out conferences and meetings is not good for business, and definitely not good for our tourism industry. The answer is sustainable conferencing - rationing your get-togethers and making sure that those you do have are as gentle on the planet as possible. The first question to ask is whether you actually need to meet in person. Does the business on the agenda really require participants to be together in one room? Rationing face to face get-togethers with managers from different places to say, once a month instead of once a week, with teleconferences in the weeks in between, can save time and money as well as the environment. Ifthe thought of teleconferencing sends shivers down your spine, then it's time to put aside your memories of scratchy phone links where half the participants can't be heard and embrace the new technology. Keith Block is head of video conferencing at Gen-i, Telecom's ICT division. He says that modern conferencing systems have little resemblance to the flat flying-saucer devices that pioneered the industry. "There's a world of difference," he said. "It's getting so good now with highdefinition systems that you can see the sweat on the faces of the people at the other end." Like most technologies, prices for video conferencing technology have fallen sharply. Where it once cost $50,000 to buy a system, you can now get a basic standarddefinition system for around $4500, with high-definition systems starting at $15,000.

Systems can be established on either standard phone lines (pay per minute) or use internal networks between offices, which is much cheaper. Desktop systems can be set up in individual offices, either using software installed on the existing computer or with a dedicated, stand-alone screen. Organisations that can't afford their own equipment can book and use Gen-i's facilities.

"IT'S MUCH HARDER TO BE SUSTAINABLE WHEN YOU ARE PUSHED FOR TIME."

Block's experience in New Zealand and Britain is that video conferencing has to be led from the front. "In Telecom, we started by installing 35 desktop video-conferencing units for general managers throughout the company, in New Zealand and Australia," he said. "We gave them the freedom to use them as they wanted, and they did, and other staff saw them using them and wanted to use them too, and now we have 90 desktop systems in place." In his five years with Telecom, he's seen video conferencing use expand from

around 150 meetings a month in 2003 to 650 a month last year. "People are getting used to it and realising how much work can be done that way," he said. "I'm based in Wellington. If 1 have to go to Auckland for a meeting, I'm up at 5am to catch a seven o'clock flight, and I'm usually not home again until six or seven at night. I'd much rather have a video conference." One organisation shaving tonnes off its carbon footprint (and thousands off its travel budget) through videoconferencing is the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union. Equivalent in budget, staff numbers and structure to many medium-sized national businesses, the union installed a video conferencing facility when it built a new head office in Wellington two years ago. National secretary Andrew Little says that although some staff were sceptical, it's proved its worth. "We often need to bring staff, members and employers from around the country into one discussion," he said. "We'd used telephone conferencing for years with some success, but video conferencing has taken it to a new level." He estimates that install ing the equipment in the union's offices in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch is saving about $30,000 a year in airfares. "For example, the leadership team which used to get together once a month is now meeting only once a year. Everything else is done by video conference. It's freed up a lot of management time, and saved us money," he said. Video conferencing is also being used to bring industry councils together more often. "And when we are working with employers who have the technology, we talk to them that way too," Little said. But there will always be a need for faceto-face meetings and conferences, which carboNZero's Smith acknowledges.
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"We're not telling organisations not to hold conferences," she said. "They're an important part of the New Zealand tourism industry, and often vital to the running of businesses and organisations. "What we are saying is 'think about what you re doi ng, a nd make sure that those you do hold are really worthwhile'." That's where the Greens come in. They accept that party members have to come together once a year to discuss policy, but don't believe that the Earth should pay for

it. Their conferences are as green as they can get them. Party co-convenor Roland Sapsford says it's not that hard once you get your head around the concept. "It's about having sustainability issues to the forefront of your mind when you are planning," he said. "You've got to get your head into the right place." He starts by askjng himself how delegates will travel to the venue, which helps determine the location.

"For democracy reasons, we are committed to moving our conferences around the country, but locations and venues still have to be easily accessible and not require large numbers of people to fly," he said. Choosing locations that are as accessible by car for as many people as possibie (carpooling is second nature to the Greens) and with easy access to buses and trains, keeps the number of people Hying to a minimum. Those who do fly are encouraged to offset their emissions.

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"THE WASTE-MINIMISATION POLICY EVEN APPLIES TO CONFERENCE GIFTS."

maraes for the flexihility they allow. "When you're staying on a marae, you all have to pitch in together and make the food and do the dishes," Sapsford said. "It makes everyone at the conference really aware of what's going on behind the scenes - you can see how much is being wasted -and has the added honus of heing a really good team-building process." Venues which don't use artificial lighting, heating and air conditioning are popular Green Party venues. "We look for places where there is passive solar heating and we can open the windows and use natural light instead of putting up with the hum of air conditioning and the flickering of fluorescent lights. "It's much more pleasant for the delegates and uses less energy." The Greens aim for a zero-waste conference, with food scraps collected for composting and paper sent for recycling. "But you've got to go further than that and look at what you're choosing to use in the first place," says Sapsford. The energy used {and therefore the carbon emitted) in producing the organic food served at the Green Party conferences is much less than that used in conventional farming, and paper use is kept as low as is practically possible. "We are great users of power-points, we email rather than post conference information, we double-side everything of course, and then we recycle what we do use." The waste-minimisation policy even applies to conference gifts. "We try not to add to the pile of useless 'stuff in the world, so we give useful and valuahle gifts like plants to our guests." Gonference organisers buy as much as they can locally, minimising the energy used to transport food and equipment to the conference.

The next challenge is the venue itself. "We look for conference venues with good waste and energy reduction policies in place," Sapsford said. "We try to hook up to two years in advance to give the venue managers and us time to organise things properly. It's much harder to he sustainahle when you are pushed for time." The party frequently looks outside the main conference circuit hotels for its venues, picking locations like universities and

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"Of course, many of our members are growers and suppliers so we've got a good start, and we check the energy and recycling policies of any other suppliers we use." And while the Greens are not above bringing in conference guests from overseas, manyoftheirinternational speakers join them by real-time video link. "It works surprisingly well," says Sapsford. "Although it means that delegates don't get to meet the guest over a cup of tea, the speakers can take questions and interact with the conference over the video link. It cuts down the air miles and means we can afford to have more overseas people involved in the conference." While the Greens might have been early adopters of sustainable conferencing, the business and events sectors are catching up fast. The Small Business Expo and the Vero Exceiience in Business Support Awards have just announced that from this year, they are going carbon neutral.
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That means assessing the travel of everyone involved in both events (including staff, exhibitors and overseas guests), putting energy-efficiency and recycling strategies in place at the venues, and offsetting emissions by purchasing carbon credits i n landfill gas projects, wind-power projects and native forest regeneration projects through carboNZero. Last year's tourism industry conference Trenz - with more than 800 participants - was also carbon neutral, as were the 31st Unesco Worid Heritage Convention involving 700 people from 183 countries, and the Commonwealth Local Government Conference in Auckland with more than 600 deiegates. TransTasman IT and network company Cisco, which often advocates video conferencing as an environmentally friendly alternative to face-to-face meetings, decided to put its money where its mouth is and go green for its conference in Brisbane last year. The annual convention - the biggest of its kind in Australasia - involved more

than 1800 people, including four days ot speeches and an exhibition with 49 vendors. The company says that it managed to reduce carbon emi.ssions by 212.3 tonnes and waste by 70 percent. The biggest carbon reduction {208 tonnes) was achieved by choosing a power supplier (Australian Green Power) with renewable energy. Other measures included installing iow-energy lighting in the exhibition halls, using reusable materials in the exhibitions stands, making conference information available electronically (52 percent of deiegates chose to receive their information this way, reducing paper usage by 45 percent), providing local, seasonal food for meals and allowing guests to select what size serving they would like, sending unused food to a food bank, and organising buses to take guests in groups between the conference, their hotels and the airport. Cisco's Australia and New Zealand managing director. Les Williamson, said that he was pleased with the outcome. "Clearly, there is an imperative for businesses such as Cisco to treat their environmental i mpact very seriously, and we are always looking for ways to reduce our carbon footprint by implementing green initiatives," he said. "We believe networking technologies can playa critical role in reducing the impact of business on the environment." The push for sustainability is also influencing how conference facility providers build and market their premises. Heritage Hotels - the largest New Zealand subscriber to the worldwide benchmarking and certification programme for the travel and tourism industry. Green Globe - opens its latest property this month in Queenstown. M
Adeli Hallett is a freelance journalist. adelia@frontpagepress.co,nz