As the organizers of WordCamp Kochi, we’ve focussed on making our event as eco-friendly and sustainable as possible since the beginning. Today, we are all aware of the adverse impact of the global climate change – in our day to day lives. Temperatures are rising, and our weather is getting unpredictable. The citizens of Kerala faced the worst of it, with the ravaging floods – that affected hundreds of thousands of people, over the past couple of years. Last year, we even had to postpone our WordCamp because of the floods!
With all of this in mind, we have decided to refocus on our commitment to the environment, with a Green theme for our WordCamp.
We acknowledge that meetings and conferences like ours play a major role in hampering the environment directly, through several ways like the generation of plastic and food waste in large quantities, among others. On the positive side, a lot of this can be mitigated with affirmative action. We can not only reduce our impact on the environment, but we can also take steps to make our attendees aware about the effects of the Global Climatic Change, and take steps on how to overcome it.
As organizers of the event, we would like to renew and reconfirm our commitment to the environment through our event.
While we are still working towards making our event as ‘green’ as possible, these are some of the action-items that we have already decided upon, in our journey to make our WordCamp eco-friendly and sustainable:
- We will be preventing the use of plastic materials for our event – as much as possible.
- If there are any plastic materials involved (like stickers and swag – some of which involve the use of a minimal amount of plastic), we will be making sure that these items may be of reusable/recyclable nature (for instance, pens made of paper).
- We are avoiding the use of Vinyl Banners (also known colloquially as ‘Flex Boards) for the WordCamp. Instead, we will be using re-usable cloth banners, which we are happy to hand over to our sponsors.
- Instead of placing Vinyl banners/standees for Sponsors, we will be providing television screens all across the venue, which our sponsors will be able to use.
- After our event, we will measure our carbon footprint, and will publish the same.
- In addition, with the help of our event, we will try to spread the message of environmental conservation and will try to raise awareness about climate change – and how we can minimize it.
We fully acknowledge that the task ahead of us is not an easy one. However, having been able to take small steps towards conserving the environment during past editions of WordCamp Kochi, we are all set to take up the challenge and to minimize
Just as a footnote, we are not the only folks in the WordPress world – to take a step towards environmental conservation. Several others have successfully embraced sustainability. WordCamp North Canton, and WordCamp Brighton have fared exceptionally well in reducing the environmental footprint of their events – something we aspire to emulate and excel at, as well. We are also inspired by the work of Jack Lennox of Automattic – who is the creator of SustyWP – a website that loads in just 6 seconds!
We also request WordCamp organizers and attendees across the world, to spare a thought for the environment, as you organize your events. As members of a global open-source community – together, we can make a lasting impact on the world!
Can’t wait to see you all at WordCamp Kochi, on the 1st December, 2019 at Seminar Hall, CUSAT!
P.S. Do you have any ideas on how to make our event more sustainable? Let us know in the comments!
Image by annca from Pixabay
