Breaking Rules, building green bridges: with a little effort and planning, you can help reduce waste and carbon emissions at the annual conference.

The enthusiastic audience response to Al Gore's keynote speech last year at the Denver conference demonstrated SLA members' keen interest in addressing global warming and environmental issues. After laying initial plans, SLA this year announced its "Knowledge to Go Green" initiative.

The theme of this year's conference is "Breaking Rules, Building Bridges." Let's make those bridges green.

As information professionals, we have the resources and skills to identify and evaluate options for lessening the environmental impacts of our conference and other professional activities. A few statistics demonstrate the importance of doing so.

According to Mary Beth Rebedeau, executive director of the Society of Independent Show Organizers (2007), a five-day conference with 2,500 attendees will generate the following waste:

* 90,000 cans or bottles

* 75,000 cups

* 87,500 napkins

Additionally, there are the brochures, printed programs, session handouts, lunches packed in plastic boxes, and all the other trappings that enrich the actual event.

The Initiative

The idea for this initiative first came to Environment & Resource Management Division members at the 2007 conference. At our division board meeting, we approved a motion to pursue the concept and formed a committee to brainstorm ideas and develop a work plan. The plan included a number of actions to share ideas and information among interested members, headquarters staff, and industry suppliers including establishing a community of practice, publishing articles, and using SLA discussion lists. The SLA Board of Directors endorsed our plan in November.

The Green Conference Initiative community of practice is up and running (http://cop.sla.org/COP/GreenConferenceInitiative) and we've announced the initiative on various discussion lists. We also presented some ideas at the 2008 Leadership Summit in Louisville and posted this presentation to the COP and the Environment and Resource Management Division's Web site (http://units.sla.org/division/derm/GreenConf.ppt). SLA is working on an environmentally conscious conference--and you can too.

Changes in the Works

Several changes are already underway within SLA; some are highly visible, others less so. In an attempt to reduce the number of printed programs and tote bags left over after the conference, SLA has reduced the quantities it orders. In addition, the conference programs will be printed on recycled paper and the tote bags for Seattle will include 50 percent recycled material in their fabric. Other changes include:

* Expanded WiFi access throughout the Seattle convention center, which will enable attendees to obtain session handouts online rather than on paper.

* Use of pitchers and glasses at sessions that include food and beverage. Bottled water will not be included as an option for session planners. Water coolers will be available throughout the convention center.

* Use of a new design template for the pre-conference program--making this year's guide 8 pages shorter than last year's. Taking into account the number of programs produced, this change will save about 82,500 sheets of paper or 165 reams. Stacked one on top of another, the pile would be about three stories tall!

What Can Attendees Do?

There are three primary areas where waste is generated in connection with conventions: travel, getting to the conference and then getting around locally; lodging accommodations; and activities at the conference facility itself. This article provides some simple suggestions for lessening your environmental impact, and presents ideas for extending them into your workplace and home.

Planning your travel. Most of us will travel to the conference by plane. We have two options. First, since a straight line and a constant rate of speed are more economical in fuel use than a zigzag route with multiple starts and stops, one option is to fly non-stop. Unfortunately, non-stop flights tend to be more expensive than those with stops are so this may not be feasible for many of us, especially if our employers impose budget limits for travel. The other option is to purchase carbon offsets.

A carbon offset is essentially a donation to a project or activity that reduces carbon in the atmosphere by an amount equivalent to what is created by your travel. This can be done regardless of your mode of travel--and will work equally well for other business trips or vacations.

For example, the calculator at Native Energy (www.nativeenergy.com/pages/travel_calculator/30.php) allows for calculating carbon generated by car, airplane, and rail/bus travel. It then provides a dollar amount needed to purchase the appropriate level of carbon offsets. The site gives options for choosing where to apply those offset dollars, such as a dairy farm methane project or a wind farm. Offsets are not expensive; a one-way flight from New York City to Seattle is only $24. (Additional carbon calculators are included in the sidebar to this article.)

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Once you get to Seattle, use public transit as much as possible. In A Consumer's Guide to Retail Carbon Offset Providers (December 2007), Clean Air--Cool Planet estimates that a ton of carbon dioxide is emitted every 1,350 miles in a large sports utility vehicle; for every 1,900 miles in a midsized car; and for every 6,000 miles in a hybrid gasoline-electric car. Public transportation reduces C02 emissions, saves scarce petroleum resources, and is more economical.

Beginning with the trip from the airport to your hotel, take consider public transit, shuttle buses, or share a taxi with others. If you are renting a car, request a hybrid. Most of the major rental car companies offer that option. For getting around town, use local buses, or walk when the weather is fine. In Seattle, there also is the option to travel by monorail, which could be a new experience for many of us. (URLs for all of these travel resources are in the sidebar.)

Before leaving home. This year, put some additional thought into what you can take from home for use during the conference. Consider packing a few extra items such as:

* A tote bag from a previous conference. We applaud SLA's efforts to reduce the number of bags ordered, as well as to use recycled content for the bag fabric. We can further support this effort by reducing the demand. So bring a tote bag from home.

* An insulated travel mug. If you need your daily dose of joe, bring a mug to the local coffee shop to fill up, eliminating the need for multiple paper cups, plastic lids, and cardboard heat guards. Bring it to your breakfast meetings and reduce the number of mugs that the hotel or convention center needs to wash.

* A refillable water bottle. Attendees won't be able to pick up a bottle of water at sessions held in the convention center. But water will be provided, so you can bottle your own. Bottled water uses energy resources at the bottling plant and in transport from the plant to the consumer. The bottles themselves are made of petroleum-based plastic. The Earth Policy Institute (Arnold and Larsen, 2006) estimates that plastic water bottles use 17 million barrels of oil annually, enough to fuel 1 million cars for one year. The Container Recycling Institute estimates that about 80 percent of the 28 billion bottles of water purchased annually in the U.S. are not recycled.

Your hotel stay. Choosing a hotel with established environmental programs in place is an easy way to make an impact. First among those programs should be a linen re-use program that allows guests to indicate they do not need their sheets and towels changed daily. According to Green Suites International, a linen re-use program for a 150-room hotel can save 6,000 gallons of water and 40 gallons of detergent per month. Corresponding energy use for washing and drying is also reduced significantly.

Hotel personal care amenities provide another opportunity to reduce waste. A 150-room hotel offering two bottles of shampoo per room can generate more than 70,000 plastic waste bottles each year at 65% occupancy (2 bottles x 365 days x 150 x .65). Look for hotels that use bulk dispensers in the showers, or bring your own supplies from home in reusable travel-sized containers. Another alternative is using products that don't come in bottles. There are companies now that sell shampoo and conditioner in bar form. Not only does it reduce wasteful packaging, you can take them in your luggage through airport security.

In-room recycling bins are another item to look for when choosing a hotel. If you don't have one in your room, ask how you can recycle your paper, cans, and bottles. The more guests ask for such services, the sooner hotels will start providing them.

Finally, consider having a roommate. You will be lighting and cooling only one room instead of two--provided remember to turn off the lights and air conditioning when you leave the room--and cut your hotel bill in half at the same time.

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The conference venue. Opportunities exist throughout the conference to think green, especially in the exhibit hall. If you aren't able to bring a travel mug or water bottle from home, look for exhibitors that are giving them away. As you visit vendor booths, look for giveaways that are useful and won't end up in landfills. Pins and pendants that light up and flash have been popular in recent years, but all that fun requires a battery. Once the novelty is over, that plastic-encased battery ends up in a landfill where it doesn't easily biodegrade.

Another way to minimize waste is to ask the vendors you visit to e-mail their information to you instead of gathering printed brochures. Also, remember to express your appreciation to those vendors who sponsor services, such as massage or handwriting analysis. Suggestions for alternatives to giveaways, including donating to a library/information-related charity, can be found on the Green Conference Initiative CoP (http://cop.sla.org/COP/GreenConferenceInitiative).

Division planners, moderators, and speakers can help make this the greenest SLA conference ever. If you must distribute printed copies of presentations:

* Print several slides on each page.

* Print in duplex (two-sided) mode.

* Use recycled paper.

When selecting venues for off-site meetings, make sure that they are near public transport (or arrange for group walking). When choosing food and beverage for your event:

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* Provide bottled water only if pitchers and glasses aren't an option

* Ask the caterer about locally-sourced food

* Offer more vegetarian options. Animal farming is resource-intensive, requiring land, water, pesticides, and energy to grow feedstock to raise the animals.

Beyond the Conference

Going completely green will take a few years, but it's not too early to begin planning for the next conference in 2009 in Washington, D.C. Why not start by saving your badge holder for use at future SLA conferences, local meetings, or other non-SLA events?

Don't let this be the only meeting where you think about the environmental effects. Many of the suggestions made in this article and on the COP can be adopted by chapters and regional and division meetings. In addition, be sure to share the work and success of SLA's green conference with other organizations to which you belong and whose conferences you attend.

Finally, many of us have the opportunity to apply some green thinking to our own libraries and organizations. Resources for green buildings, including green libraries and librarianship, are included in the sidebar to this article. We urge readers to continue to contribute new ideas to the new column in this journal by e-mailing them to [e-mail]. Demonstrate your "knowledge to go green."

References

Arnold, Emily and Larsen, Janet. (2006, February 2). Bottled Water: Pouring Resources Down the Drain. Retrieved February 20, 2008, from http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2006/Update51.htm

Clean Air--Cool Planet. (2007, December). A Consumer's Guide to Retail Carbon Offset Providers. Retrieved February 20, 2008, from http://cleanair-coolplanet.org/ConsumersGuidetoCarbonOffsets.pdf

Container Recycling Institute. Graphs: Plastic Bottle Statistics. Retrieved February 20, 2008, from http://www.container-recycling.org/plasrate/graphs.htm

Green Suites International. Linen Re-Use Program. Retrieved February 20, 2008, from http://www.greensuites.com/green_suites_linen.php

Rebedeau, Mary Beth. (2007). The Greening of Events. Retrieved February 12, 2008, from http://www.siso.org/images/07_CEO/greening.ppt

BY CYNTHIA EASTMAN, BARBIE KEISER, AND BOBBI WEAVER

FOR THE SLA ENVIRONMENT & RESOURCE MANAGEMENT DIVISION

RELATED ARTICLE: GREEN RESOURCE MATERIALS

Carbon Calculators and Offset Programs

Carbinofy Calculator.

www.safecom.org.au/carbon.htm.

Clean Air--Cool Planet.

A consumers' guide to retail carbon offset providers, prepared by Trexler Climate and Energy Services. http://cleanair-cool-planet.org.

Native Energy.

www.nativeenergy.com/pages/travel_cal-culator/30.php.

Green Tag.

www.greentagsusa.org/GreenTags/index.cfm.

Seattle Local Transit

Seattle-Tacoma Airport Ground Transport.

www.portseattle.org/seatac/ground.

Seattle Monorail.

www.seattlemonorail.com.

King County Metro Online

(Seattle public transit system).

http://transit.metrokc.gov.

Shampoo Bars

Burt's Bees rosemary mint shampoo bar.

www.burtsbees.com.

Select "Hair," then "Shampoo."

Vermont Country soap shampoo bar.

www.vermontsoap.com/bar.html.

J.R. Liggett shampoo bars.

(Available from Mother Nature.)

www.mothernature.com.

Lush shampoo bars.

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www.lush.com.

Select your country's Web site. In the "Jump to" pull-down menu, select "Solid shampoo."

Hotel Environmental Programs

Environmentally-Friendly Hotels.

www.environmentallyfriendlyhotels.com. Based on voluntary data submission. Do "Advanced Search" for Seattle, Washington.

Green Hotels Association.

www.greenhotels.com. Trade organization for hotels and service providers. Membership list: www.greenhotels.com/memship.htm.

Audubon Green Leaf Eco-Rating Program

(Canada). www.terrachoice.ca/hotelweb-site/indexcanada.htm.

General Green Meeting and Green Office Resources

Meeting guidelines.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. "It's easy being green. A guide to planning and conducting environmentally aware meetings and events," EPA530-K-96-002

Procurement guidelines.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Comprehensive procurement guidelines. www.epa.gov/cpg.

Green Architecture and Libraries

Green Librarianship Wiki.

http://librarycampnyc.wikispaces.com/Green+Librarianship.

Green Librarianship.

http://wiki.radicalreference.info/index.php/Green_Librarianship.

Green Libraries.

"A clearinghouse for information and resources concerning green and sustainable libraries." www.greenlibraries.org. Includes a listing of libraries that have used green construction.

METRO Green

Librarianship Special Interest Group. www.metro.org/collaborate/index.php/Green_Librarianship.

U.S. Green Building Council.

www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CategoryID=19, includes Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification and resources.

SLA Green Conference Initiative

Community of Practice. http://cop.sla.org/COP/GreenConferencelnitiative.

Environment & Resource Management Division presentation

at the 2008 SLA Leadership Summit. http://units.sla.org/division/derm/index.htm.