EcoWorldly

The carbon footprint of international conferences held in Cape Town is almost entirely a function of travel. Erecting the greenest building in South Africa will probably have greater public relations value than environmental impact, if the air travel component is not addressed.

The New Conference Centre

Following a feasibility study the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC) has decided to invest 130 million US$ in the extension of its facilities. The planned expansion will include 9,500 m² of exhibition and a total of 30,000 m².

In announcing the plans it was stated that the building would be South Africa’s greenest building! Rashid Toefy, the CEO of CTICC’s holding company said “In the context of climate change, sustainable business development and being in a competitive industry, CTICC’s focus must be on minimising its carbon footprint and the environmental impact of any planned expansion.”

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The building is designed to use 40% less energy per square metre than the present CTICC, 95% less potable water and 25% less waste to landfill. According to the press release it will incorporate some of the most progressive environmentally friendly building techniques available and will set the highest possible international standard in sustainable building design and management

The building’s passive energy design (which includes a planted green roof, bicycle facilities for staff and visitors along with integration of the site with planned city cycle routes), its use of natural light, solar energy, and wind turbines will reduce energy consumption. Recycling rainwater and on-site water treatment system will reduce water consumption. Space has been allowed for on site sorting and recycling to reduce waste.

The Carbon Footprint

However, calculations based on the data and approaches of a number of sources (see links at end of post), indicates that the carbon footprint of the Conference Center is practically total dependent on the emissions from travel. Air travel makes up  94% and local travel 4% of the total footprint. Only a half a percent of the carbon footprint appears to be due to the actual operation of the conference, with the remainder of 1.5% being attributable to accommodation.

Note: The calculation is based on a high level of international delegates. The assumption is in line with the CTICC’s statement that in 2008 it generated 1.2 million “delegate, visitor and tourist days” and the estimation that this included 625 000 international tourist days attributable to the the centre.

CTICC were contacted to understand their plans to address other parts of the footprint such as accommodation, video conferencing, documentation, electric transport, green hotels, green airlines, and rail travel. They only forwarded the press release from their website and a statement that a detailed feasibility study had been done but that it was confidential.  The CTICC website also has no information on how they address the environmental impact of their business other than the press release on the new building.

So the press release and publicity around the greenest building in South Africa clearly qualifies as Greenwashing and will do little to keep Cape Town at the forefront of the conference business as things develop.

On the other hand the CTICC is important to Cape Town and to South Africa in terms of the direct and indirect jobs it creates and the foreign exchange it generates. The centre’s climate change impacts must, therefore, be addressed in a much more rigorous process.

Reducing the Carbon Footprint of Conferences

So what can conference organisers and attendees do to reduce the impact conferences have on climate change?

I think its an “inconvenient truth” that the first step sits with the attendees - they must seriously reconsider the need for each conference they attend. They should not use conferences as the free, first stage of holiday travel that they would not have taken otherwise. Reducing conferences from annual to biennial, practically halves the footprint The medical fraternity has been discussing this for the last few years (links for a lot of the debate are available through two articles in the British Medical Journal that argued for and against the need for significant change to international medical conferences to reduce the carbon footprint).

Once a conference is scheduled the venue can be located to minimise the air travel (see the calculator on http://www.hubcalc.com) rather than selecting an exotic location, keynote speakers who would anyway not network can use  video broadcasts to avoid travel and the proceedings can be broadcast through the INTERNET so that those not needing to attend would not have to travel.

This obviously don’t sit comfortably with a “bricks and motor” conference centre which runs its own conferences, but it creates the opportunity for companies without a centre who run conferences at the most appropriate location. An example was described in a previous EcoWorldly post entitled Green Conference Organizer Walks The Talk On Sustainability.

Other actions such as energy, water and waste management, replacing paper with electronic information, reducing local shuttle travel and offering carbon offsets will not impact the footprint as much as reducing air travel but must still be implemented.

Photo Credit: CTICC’s image downloads

Carbon Footprint Sites:

Food & Trees for Africa - FTFA Carbon Standard Calculator

EIA - Household Buildings Industries & Vehicles Energy Data Analysis & Survey Information

Green Progress :: Carbon Footprint Calculator

BusinessTravel - STI

Event carbon footprint calculator | TerraPass: fight global warming, reduce your carbon footprint

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