Sustainability at Annual Congress 2022
At the Association, we recognise that we have a responsibility to reduce our environmental impact, in particular for events. For Annual Congress 2022 we are focusing on the below initiatives:
Annual Congress 2022 venue - ICC Belfast
The ICC Belfast are dedicated to reducing the environmental impact of their business through the adoption and promotion of sustainability principles, providing a safe and sustainable environment for their team, clients and customers, as well as to the local community.
ICC Belfast has recently been awarded a Green Meetings Silver Award, reflecting their investment in sustainability and commitment to the development of a sustainable tourism plan, in line with Belfast’s transformational resilience strategy; and supported through a city wide sustainable Green Tourism partnership funded by Belfast City Council and delivered by Visit Belfast. Find out more about the award here.
Some of the main areas that ICC Belfast focus on:
- No waste goes directly to landfill. Waste separation bins are available in the conference, and all dry waste is recycled. They source 100% compostable and biodegradable paper cups.
- Belfast is a small city that can be easily navigated on foot. The convenient location at the heart of the city centre minimises the need for delegate transfers.
- Over 90% of employees use public transport, cycle, or walk to work, helping to reduce city centre congestion and air pollution.
- The combined heat and power system is a lower carbon technology that captures and reuses heat waste in the building to reduce overall CO2 emissions.
- Hospitality Belfast incorporate ingredients from local suppliers that can be traced at every stage of the short farm to fork journey.
Download a copy of ICC Belfasts' sustainable journey so far
The City of Belfast
Belfast is one of the Top 20 sustainable destinations in the world, and has been recognised by the Global Destination Sustainability Index (GDS-Index) as a city committed to sustainable development and growth. The GDS Index evaluated Belfast on four key areas; environmental strategy and infrastructure, social sustainability performance, industry supplier support and strategy and initiatives of the city’s destination marketing and management organisation (DMMO).
This follows the launch of Belfast’s Resilience Strategy, the city’s first climate plan, which outlines 30 transformational programmes to transition the Belfast City Region to an inclusive, zero-emissions, climate-resilient economy within a generation. Find out more about the strategy here.
What the Association of Anaesthetists is doing:
- Hotels and social events are centrally located near to the venue, minimising the need for transport.
- Minimising plastic use by swapping from plastic wallets to recyclable paper badges.
- Providing crockery and reusable materials instead of disposable.
- Providing the facility to refill water bottles. You can find refillable Association bottles at our stand!
- Printed materials being kept at a minimum, and a much smaller conference booklet. We will be promoting our events app for more detailed information.
- Reusing conference lanyards.
- Bookings and confirmations all sent via email, with no printed confirmations.
- Ensuring that our catering offering is as local as possible and hosting a meat free day.
- We are working with our sponsors and exhibitors to minimise disposable materials and encouraging them to apply for the Green Exhibitor Award.
Actions we would encourage delegates to take when attending:
- Use public transport and walk wherever possible around Belfast city.
- If you are flying, take use of the bus shuttles running from the airport to the city centre.
- Please recycle your badges and lanyards at the end of the conference.
- Please recycle any waste in the bins provided.
- Bring a reusable water bottle with you to refill at the venue.
- Calculate your carbon footprint and offset where possible. There are a variety of websites and apps available, for example WWF.