Our sustainability policy
We would like to tell you about what we do to make our operations as sustainable as possible. Feel free to let us know what your organization is doing and share your lessons learned. Email: 
events(at)ewea.org
EWEA’s commitment to sustainability
EWEA takes social and environmental considerations into account in all we do. EWEA is committed to:
- championing the development of a wind industry that is economically, socially and environmentally sustainable;
- minimising the environmental impact of its operations, communications and events;
- incorporating sustainability principles and stewardship into the management of the association.
We recognise that this is an ongoing journey and we continually strive to improve. EWEA has adopted the MCI Sustainable Event Management (SEM) framework to provide a structure for sustainable event organisation and is currently working towards BS8901 Sustainable Event Management System compliance.
- You can help! If you won't use it again drop your bag in the collection points before leaving the venue!
Sustainability at our events
EWEA events are audited by MCI Sustainability Services. The actions undertaken by the venue and hotels, as well as catering, food, beverage and transportation suppliers are verified enabling EWEA events to be benchmarked against other leading sustainably managed and audited events.
Some examples of EWEA's actions onsite are:
- we select venues that minimise their own footprint;
- we minimise the amount of printed material;
- we recycle all materials, whenever possible;
- we encourage the use of public transport;
- we provide our exhibitors with a guide to more sustainable exhibitions (
Greener exhibition - Recommendations (599kb)); - we collect conference badges at the end of the conference and reuse them ourselves or return them to our supplier to be reused at other conferences;
- we collect conference bags and donate them to charities in the local community, such as the Mayflower Charity Foundation, Sweden’s largest Child help organisation (Majblomman).
If you are interested in knowing more about the sustainability performance and activities of EWEA’s two past events, please read the following Sustainable event assessment reports:
- 
EWEC2009 report (3.47MB)
- EOW2009 report (1.14MB)
- Bag-supplier Nexus has implemented social responsible working practices
Suppliers
EWEA takes the environmental and corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies of potential suppliers into consideration in the selection process and strives to bring maximum benefit to local businesses in the host city.
Event suppliers receive a Code of Conduct, in which EWEA outlines clear expectations for compliance to ethical, responsible and sustainable business practices. In this way, EWEA strives to leave the host city a meaningful legacy.
Nexus, one of our conference bag suppliers, has developed its own factory in China enabling it to implement more socially responsible working practices for a motivated and happy staff.
Sheraton Catering Warsaw, the selected caterer for EWEC 2010, was the first hotel in Poland to be certified in HACCP (a risk management tool recognized internationally for use in the proactive management of food safety issues). Sheraton Catering already has a comprehensive sustainability policy in place involving the use of biodegradable cutlery and onsite waste separation.
Communication
EWEA uses electronic correspondence as much as possible with limited hard copy mailings.
- All delegates and visitors register online or onsite through an electronic registration system. No hard copies are exchanged.
- All conference abstracts are submitted and reviewed online and applicants are notified of the outcome of their submission by e-mail. Hard copies are not used at all.
- The online exhibitor manual in enables the majority of queries to be handled online.
- Conference proceedings are made available online instead of sending out individual copies to each delegate.
- All of publications are printed using chlorine free and FSC certified paper and vegetable based ink.
- EWEA's offices situated in Renewable Energy House, central Brussels
At our office
- EWEA's offices are located in Renewable Energy House, a 140-year-old building which has been refurbished to minimise energy consumption and to explore different methods for integrating renewable energy technologies, making it a 100% renewable energy building.
- We offset all staff travel.
- Members of staff are actively encouraged to minimise printing.
- All materials are recycled.
- We only use FSC certified paper.
Sponsors
"... an excellent advertisement of the success of wind energy"
E.ON Climate & Renewables, Germany
