Issue 47
October 18, 2004

 Any Questions?

Environment Canada's knowledgeable specialists answer questions about wildlife, air pollution, water, weather, climate change and other aspects of the environment.

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Where can I find information on carbon neutral conferencing?

Carbon neutral conferencing allows conference organizers to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from travel and accommodation activities where possible, and to offset any emissions that cannot be reduced through other means. Holding a carbon neutral conference involves four key steps:

• Apply a "green meeting" strategy to minimize the meeting's overall environmental impacts;
• Estimate conference emissions based on delegates' travel and accommodation choices;
• Offset remaining emissions by purchasing verified carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e ) credits;
• Retire CO2e credits through a verified Registry, for example, the Canadian GHG Reductions Registry of Canada's Climate Change Voluntary Challenge and Registry Inc. (VCR Inc.)

Carbon neutral conferences highlight organizational leadership in greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction and offsetting. They also help to educate, influence and engage an organization's contact audiences. The process of hosting carbon neutral conferences can help organizations understand more about their operational GHG emissions, and how to deal with them.

The Federal House in Order Office has developed a comprehensive Guide to Carbon Neutral Conferencing, as well as a concise one-page overview, which will be made available through the FHIO Web site.

Holding a Green Meeting

Whether you are planning a small meeting, medium-sized workshop or large conference, there are many things you can easily do to make it a "green" event. You can ensure that all aspects of the event — including its location, food services, transportation issues and the provision of materials — are approached with a pollution prevention perspective in mind in order to reduce its environmental impact.

Meetings can consist of both long distance and local travel which is unavoidable in order to get participants to the meeting. In the event that a meeting has a lot of international/ national travel, there is an option to purchase emission reduction credits in order to offset the GHG emissions associated with this travel.

For more detailed information on holding a green meeting, see a list of practical tips and the comprehensive Green Meetings Manual and checklists available from Environment Canada.

There are also excellent online tools available that provide advice on hosting green meetings, including:

• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's One-Stop Information Source for Green Meetings
• A list of hotels participating in the Audubon Green Leaf Eco-Rating Program
• The federal government's Accommodation and Car Rental Directory that lets users search for hotels according to their Green Leaf rating
• A list of members of the U.S.-based "Green" Hotels Association

What are emission credits?

After applying Green Meeting strategies to limit a conference's GHG emissions and other environmental impacts as much as possible, the event's actual emissions (e.g. delegate's travel to the event) can be offset through the purchase of GHG emission reduction credits, which are reductions that have had their existence and eligibility certified by independent third parties. This certification assures purchasers that the projects generating the credits have met important requirements related to environmental additionality, host jurisdictional acceptance, monitoring protocols and independent verification.

An organization can invest in local, regional, national or international emission reduction projects. Project types include renewable energy, advanced energy technologies, improved agricultural practices, and afforestation.

Environment Canada's Success Stories

Environment Canada has been involved in offsetting emissions from some of its larger international meetings since 2002. Some examples include the Health and Environment Ministers of the America's meeting, the G8 Environment Ministers meeting in Banff 2002, the Canadian delegation to the Eighth and Ninth Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and the World Summit on Sustainable Development. EC was also the first organization to officially retire its emission offset credits through Canada's Climate Change Voluntary Challenge and Registry, Inc. (VCR Inc.) in 2003. This ensured that the credits were taken off the emission trading market, and retired on behalf of the environment.

Environment Canada purchased these carbon emission credits by funding international projects that led to reduced greenhouse gas emissions, while delivering high sustainability and social benefits in the countries where they have been implemented.

For more information on Carbon Neutral Conferencing, or how to offset emissions from your own event, contact the Federal House in Order.

Related Links:

• Federal House in Order - Carbon Neutral Conferencing
• Canada's Climate Change Voluntary Challenge and Registry Inc.
• Environment Canada's Green Meeting Manual and Checklist