Environment-Friendly Conferences

Green is in. With all the talk about global warming and environmental concerns, it seems more important than ever for everyone to do their part to reduce their carbon footprint. From taking baby steps like shortening your shower time, to long term changes like travelling less frequently, every bit now counts in an effort to reduce the damage done to the Earth.

Likewise, companies the world over have been touting their new “green” policies. Capitaland, the real estate giant headquartered in Singapore, has an environmental policy as part of their corporate responsibility plan. Hewlett Packard has their green policy for a host of their imaging and printing options, and even the government has adopted a tax incentive scheme for businesses that go green.

So naturally, it’s only a matter of time before even going to conferences can be environmentally friendly. Just think about it. Five hundred or more delegates from all over the world will be flying in on planes in just a few days. When the head back home, they’re probably going to be bringing several tons of brochures, flyers and other paper material with them. Imagine the amount of carbon emission those two acts alone produced!

But, all is not lost! Some conferences are already taking steps to reduce their carbon trail with simple solutions that actually work over the long run.

BlueSky Festival 2008

For the past five years, the BlueSky Festival has attracted hundreds of delegates from the entrepreneurial community to network, talk about new ideas and also to enjoy themselves.

This year, for the event’s fifth anniversary, Conference Bay has the honour of taking in all bookings for this famed event!

Since the whole festival is buta few short weeks away, here’s a brief rundown on what’s going to happen on the 17th and 18th of July 2008:

World Toilet Summit and Expo 2008

Yes. You read that right. An entire convention dedicated to all things about the potty!

The World Toilet Summit & Expo, to be held in Macau in November this year, is already into its 9th year. Part from garnering giggles and even outright laughter, the event has been spreading the word that the toilet and sanitation industry is one of serious business. According to its statistics, there are an estimated 2.6 billion people around the world who remain without proper sanitation facilities. Also,1.8 million children die of diarrheal diseases every year.

Not so funny anymore is it? The World Toilet Organisation (WTO) has set a Millennium Development Goal to halve the proportion of people without proper sanitation access by 2015. Unfortunately, they’ve realised that this goal may not be attainable after all as 40% of the world’s population still has no access to basic sanitation. Therefore, they’ve declared 2008 as International Year of Sanitation to promote clean toilets and address sanitation and hygiene issues.

Water, Water Everywhere… But Not A Drop To Spare

If there’s any one country that knows first-hand how precious potable water is, it’s Singapore.

The island has no natural freshwater rivers or lakes that would supply its citizens with drinking water. To combat this problem, reservoirs and catchment areas have been created to collect rainfall. Singapore also has to rely on water imports from Malaysia to sustain its needs. So much effort to collect water for a country that’s completely surrounded by the sea.

It’s no surprise then, that Singapore is the host country for the first ever Singapore International Water Week. The event, to be held on 23rd to 27th June 2008, comprises of a World Leader’s Summit, a Water Convention, a Water Expo and a Water Festival. Another first is the Lee Kuan Yew Water Prize. The prize, consisting of S$300,000, a gold medal and an award certificate was given to Dr Andrew Benedek. What did he do to garner this award? He invented the low-pressure membranes used to recycle non-potable water into potable water. Yes. He made NEWater possible!

The Opposite of Conference Is?

What on earth is an “unconference”? We stumbled upon this funny word a few days ago while conducting some research. An “unconference” is a ‘facilitated participant-driven face-to-face conference around a theme or purpose’. In English, it is a meeting set up by the delegates for the delegates without the hassle of registration months in advance and the corresponding high prices.

A recent article in Business Week describes an unconference:

“They’re a hybrid of a teach-in and a jam session, with a little show-and-tell mixed in, and they are attracting hundreds in cities like Austin, Tex., Bangalore, San Francisco, Sydney, and Tokyo. Unlike traditional, $1,000-a-head and up conferences, they’re totally unstructured—the agenda isn’t determined until the opening day of the event. Everyone who shows up is a potential speaker, and those who don’t speak contribute by posting photos, blog entries, podcasts, and video clips of the proceedings. Neckties and heels are noticeably absent. And attendance is almost always inexpensive or free.”

It’s quite a novel idea isn’t it?

The mantra that moves these events is the Rule of Two Feet: if you’re not learning from or contributing to a discussion, then use those two feet you have to move on to another group discussion. The one other big difference is that the discussions are much more participatory than regular conferences. That way, instead of sticking to an agenda set by the organisers, the path the discussion takes is shaped by the audience themselves.

One of the biggest advantages of these unconferences is that they do not require a lot of infrastructure and organization. This is turn, means that they can occur more frequently and on a shorter notice than regular conferences. Also, as the cost to attend is either very minimal or practically non-existent, anyone who wants to come can come.

Despite their many plus points, unconferences do suffer from a few short-comings. For those used to the structure of regular conferences, the improvised nature of unconferences may be a bit hard to swallow. Also, since everything was put together at the last minute, finding the right sessions can be difficult. Newcomers may even get lost in all the chaos.

Sessions at an unconference can also be very unprofessional, as the speakers are not “forced” to talk about something just because they’re experts at it. This however, can be a good thing. When you’re talking about something you feel very strongly for, the chances are, you’re going to be able to capture the audience’s attention more effectively than if you were just reading from PowerPoint slides.

If you want to learn more about unconferences, check out some of these sites:

- Unconference.net

- Digital Web

- Scripting News Annex

And if you have ever been to an unconference, please share your views here with other readers and us!