Members meeting

This year, one of the key components of our conference is How to face up to Climate Change. This session challenges us to face up to climate change, to work better and harder to sustain our organisations and sector and ultimately to ensure our survival. Led by Catríona Fallon, CEO of Siamsa Tíre, a group of artists and change agents including Ben Twist, Director of Creative Carbon Scotland and Catherine Bottrill of Julie’s Bicycle arm us with the information and actions that are essential for an environmentally sustainable society.

As part of this, we have looked closely at what we can do to make our conference more zero waste. Here is our progress so far – if you’ve more ideas we would love to hear from you.

  • Print – we reduced print to an absolute minimum. This year, the delegate list and programme will all be available digitally rather than in printed format.
  • Take-away glass Keep Cup – instead of a conference bag and printed material, we’re giving all delegates a glass Keep Cup. You can use this throughout the conference and for many years to come.
  • Catering at the conference – as ever you’ll receive lunch on both conference days and evening dinner on Wednesday night. All meals will be served with dishes, cups and utensils that can be washed and reused, rather than single use materials.
  • Travel to the conference – we know it’s not possible for everyone, but there are lots of public transport options to and from Belfast and we would encourage you if feasible to use one of these
  • Conference badges – all name badges will be printed on recyclable card with no plastic pocket or coating. We will have a stock of lanyards with us but if you’ve some lanyards from previous conferences or have a favourite one do bring along. At the end of the conference, return your name badge and lanyard to us and we’ll enter your into a competition (and recycle your name badge and reuse your lanyard!)

If you’ve more ideas, get in touch with us!

Have a look at our programme and book conference tickets.

Photo Credit ©Ste Murray