Reduce your impact on the environment by offsetting your travel-related greenhouse gas emissions!

A Green Event

Having the opportunity to meet face to face, connect and share our knowledge is an invaluable experience as we collaborate on building sustainable communities. At the same time, we recognize these events have associated impacts from travel/transportation and lodging. As we approach our inaugural conference, planned for March 9-11, 2009 in Dallas, we are mindful to ensure that the values we promote as an Agency have been incorporated into our plans for this important event. The EPA’s Sustainable Skyline Initiative and the Sustainable Communities Conference are committed to the goal of facilitating as much of a "carbon neutral" event as possible.

In planning for the event, great care was taken to incorporate sustainability considerations into the various aspects and activities for the conference. These actions include:

• Reducing the amount of materials produced for the conference
• Encouraging the use of public transportation
• Facilitating offsets for our impacts with the help of meeting participants and sponsors.

In keeping with our goal, we are also encouraging conference participants to offset their travel-related carbon impacts associated with the conference.

For a list of carbon offset providers, we suggest you visit CarbonCatalog.org. Carbon Catalog is a free and independent web directory of carbon offsets (they do not sell offsets or have commercial relationships with providers). Thanks for your consideration.

Let’s Make it Count!

Bring us proof of your travel-related carbon offsets and be entered to win a special raffle prize. In addition, everyone’s offsets will be tallied and reported at the end of the conference.

Materials

Inks & Paper

We will be using special, low-impact inks and minimizing the use of paper where we can.

Recycling

Be sure to use the many recycling containers that will be provided by the hotel.

Table & Glassware

We will be using reusable materials as much as possible to minimize waste.

Carbon Offsets

Staff have calculated our Sherton Conference facilities’ will contribute approximately 24.6 tons* of CO2 to the atmosphere.

One of our premier conference sponsors, the Texas Aggregates & Concrete Association (TACA) has graciously agreed to cover the costs of the carbon offset credits necessary to completely negate these climatic impacts associated with the Conference.

Footnotes:
* Conference carbon footprint calculation based on and assumption of a conference space of 250,000 square feet over the course of 2.5 days.