Towards sustainable conferences

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Overall considerations
You may need to consider a balance and trade-offs between good venues and travel options, especially in rural areas.

Venue
Is there a listing of suitable venues in your region. If your region has a local sustainability network can they suggest appropriate venues? Or if no such listing exists could you start one, for example on this wiki?

Does your choice of venue support any local sustainability action or group working towards local sustainability or any aspect of it? Is the venue an example of any sort of sustainable construction techniques or materials or designing in sustainability? Do the facilities make use of natural lighting? Have any energy efficiency measures been adopted? Minimal need for heating or air conditioning? Water conservation? Grounds managed sustainably?

Travel
Is the venue fully accessible? Is the venue well served by public transport? Are there any possibilities of arranging or encouraging liftsharing? Are there any possibilities for encouraging water-borne transport, park and sail, etc.? Can the event incorporate community cycle rides or sustainability walks?

Paper used and eco-friendly exhibitions
How much paper will the event produce? Are there alternatives to consider. For example providing information via this wiki or other websites? A wiki might be used for designing and preparing agenda, speaker and delegate information and profiles, information on travel options, questions to encourage participants to think about agenda items before the conference, outlines of what kinds of outcomes the conference is seeking, and ways of continuing discussion on specific topics after a conference. If paper has to be used is it as eco-friendly as possible? Do hand outs need folders, etc and are these eco-friendly? Do any displays use eco-friendly materials as much as possible?

Catering
Can you support any kind of local sustainability project, farmers market, wholefood suppliers, etc? Is food and drink locally sourced, organic, including vegetarian and vegan options, or fair trade? Are there alternatives to paper cups, plates, etc? If your region has a local sustainability network, can they suggest people to help with catering?

Complementary currencies
Can the event incorporate any use of complementary currencies?

Participation
Especially if your event includes topics such as 'community involvement', to what extent are you 'practicing what you preach' or 'walking the talk' by providing extensive and innovative means for delegates to actively participate in the conference?

Involvement of local communities
If your event is not particularly aimed at the community local to the venue is there any way of involving the local community in some aspect of the event, e.g. exhibitions from local sustainability action, or practical, social or cultural activities?

Content of the conference
To what extent is the event really about sustainability? Does it seek to integrate the various strands - environmental, social, economic (and perhaps even spiritual) well-being - of sustainability? To what extent will any conclusions from the conference be actionable by participants?