Environmental impact

From Wikimania

This page is intended to discuss - and to reduce - the environmental impact of Wikimania 2018.

What we can do

Save energy

  • Choose accommodation within walking distance from venues.
  • Offer bus transport to and from venues.[clarification needed]
  • Raise awareness about switching off all electronic appliances when leaving hotel rooms[clarification needed]

Save water

Create less waste

  • avoid disposable cutlery (provide meals which do not require cutlery - non-disposable cutlery requires water for washing)
  • use recycled paper for all printing (printing should be avoided where possible)
  • use lanyards and name tags from recycled materials
  • make your own re-usable name tag and bring it with you, or re-use one you already have.
  • Waste recycling options are made readily available throughout the conference venue and hotel
  • Water bottles provided on arrival to prevent the use of disposable cups and/or other cups (that require significant water for washing up) or bring your own water bottle. (does the carbon cost of flying a water bottle exceed the cost of providing a new one at the venue?)

Promote local food/products

  • Conference bag/t-shirt (if applicable) should be locally produced[clarification needed]
  • Conference bag/t-shirt (if applicable) should be made from environment-friendly material such as bamboo which uses significantly less water than cotton[clarification needed]
  • Provide predominantly vegetarian/vegan menus to lower the carbon footprint.

Travel/Transport

  • Encourage the foundation to book direct flights where possible (and avoid stopover in Johannesburg)[clarification needed]
  • Encourage the use of public transport, MyCiti bus, from airport to city centre, where the accommodation is likely to be. The MyCiti bus runs a good round the clock bus service from the airport to the city centre and departs every half an hour. Perhaps conference attendees could be provided with a printable version of a card that is already loaded with money so that they can use this service upon their arrival at the airport. This would need some negotiation with the bus operators.[clarification needed]
  • Ensure that the tour operators recommended practice sustainable tourism [clarification needed]
  • Carbon offset based on distance flown per conference attendee and the money is used to support local initiatives[clarification needed]

Encourage remote participation

The encouragement of remote participation will reduce the carbon footprint of the event as it will scale back on the number of flights being taken to attend the conference. One return flight from London to Cape Town emits 3.1 metric tons of CO2. We expect this project to reduce those CO2 emissions by around 100 return flights for a rough estimated total of 310 metric tons of CO2.[clarification needed]

  • see the dedicated page Video

Who wants to help?


Further reading