Estoril Green Festival 2011 "Sustainable Events Seminar"

1. Sustainable Meetings – Estoril
Sept. 2011
Jelena Milovic
Congress & Exhibition Manager

2. Agenda
- Where do we start?
- IAS CSR Strategy
- AIDS 2010 case study

3. Where do we start?
Convincing leadership – Why?
Opportunity to rethink processes
Opportunity to raise questioning
Becomes important to all stakeholders
Need to be responsible for our actions
Do not necessarily need a budget for it – could save costs
Motivation tool for staff
Easy to implement

4. Where do we start?
Getting started – How?
Staring point: list what we do already (internal audit)
Check what can be easily improved
Gather new ideas, think of the implementation
Involve the whole staff – e.g.: creation of a working group
(representing all departments)
Structure the information in an Action Plan
Follow up !

5. IAS CSR strategy
Background information
AIDS Conferences – approx. 20’000 delegates
IAS Conferences – approx. 7’000 delegates
AIDS 2006 – Toronto
IAS 2007 – Sydney
AIDS 2008 – Mexico : First time with a “real” CSR plan!
IAS 2009 – Cape Town : Focus on Social Aspects
AIDS 2010 – Vienna: IMEX Green meetings Gold Award winner!

6. IAS CSR strategy
To best balance the environmental, social and
economic impact of our conference
Going beyond “Greening” only
The “4 R’s” – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle & Raise
Awareness

7. AIDS 2010 4R’s
REDUCE the environmental impact of the conference while supporting the local economy
by:
• Using local suppliers who have good social responsibility policies, whenever possible
• Offsetting carbon emissions and giving conference attendees the opportunity to do so
• Reducing the number of publications printed, and printing on FSC paper.
REUSE conference surplus by:
• Implementing a donation programme
• Collecting surplus food and redistributing it to homeless people in Vienna.
RECYCLE conference waste by:
• Giving attendees the opportunity to recycle their waste through sorting bins.
RAISE AWARENESS on:
a) Our greening efforts by:
• Communicating these efforts to our staff, suppliers, delegates and exhibitors.
b) HIV and AIDS issues for non-delegates by:
• Expanding our online coverage of conference issues
• Extending outreach by holding conference hubs in Eastern Europe and Central Asia for
those who are unable to attend the conference
• Giving our volunteers access to the sessions and content of the conference.

8. Environmental impact - highlights
Carbon Offset programme:
All Organizers, Speakers, Scholarships’ flights were carbon offset
All delegates could choose the option to offset their flight on the
registration page
30’000 USD collected and redistributed to sustainable development
projects:
CONTINUOUS SUPPORT: Township Patterns sewing cooperatives
(Cape Town, South Africa)
GLOBAL: Eco stoves and Biogas digesters in China
LOCAL: Austria Runde Sache – Viennese youth ecological organization
Water
No individual plastic
water bottles – stickers
in restrooms

9. Social impact – highlights
Donation programme:
Donation boxes placed throughout the venue
Items collected: furniture, banners, stationary, bags, publications
Food donation programme
Leftover food donated to a local NGO – enough food to feed 160
people daily during the conference
Leftover bags (800) donated to the “Rom” community in
Vienna
Volunteer programme – 770 volunteers able to access
conference sessions when not on duty
Accessibility
Dedicated info desk, sign language interpretation, “Braille”
programmes, wheelchairs available, accompanying person free
entrance

10. Economic impact
A more sustainable conference management saved:
USD 15’000 by not printing invitation programmes
USD 18’000 by not printing general information booklets
USD 20’000 by printing abstract books only upon order (instead of
printing stock)
USD 500’000 by not providing shuttle busses (based on AIDS 2008
transportation budget)
USD 50,000 by not having to buy water for delegates (based on AIDS
2008 water budget)
TOTAL SAVED compared to previous congresses: US$ 603,000

11. THANK YOU !
More information on our CSR initiative here:
http://www.iasociety.org
Jelena Milovic
Congress & Exhibition Manager
International AIDS Society
Jelena.milovic@iasociety.org