The Australian Pain Society and DC Conference & Association Management are committed to producing environmentally friendly events. This is what we are doing to achieve this goal:
Following the success of this program in its first year in 2021, the APS and DCC&A is once again working with Carbon Neutral, to plant a tree for every registered delegate at the ASM. Delegates will also have the opportunity to purchase additional trees through the regsitration.
Conference handbooks have not been produced since 2014. The APS conference handbook was, on average, 120 pages long and approximately 800 copies would be printed each year. By opting to use a conference app instead, the APS has saved more than half a million sheets of paper being used by the time APS 2024 rolls around.
The conference app provides delegates with more information than a handbook ever could; delegates can personalise their own program, read through a number of abstracts and information we couldn’t previously fit into the handbook, click through to view soft copy versions of submitted posters, connect with exhibitors and other delegates, plus so much more.
The lanyards that will be available to delegates onsite have been made from environmentally sustainable bamboo. For sanitary reasons, we are unable to reuse lanyards and so instead encourage delegates to bring their own lanyards from home where possible.
The APS ASM does not supply conference satchels. We hope delegates and exhibitors will get behind our move away from offering something we are increasingly told “ends up in the bin”! We encourage exhibitors to offer digital copies of their sales materials. We also encourage all delegates to dig through your cupboards and find past APS ASM satchel to bring along!
The Darwin Convention Centre is continually working to improve its performance as an environmentally sustainable event facility. They are currently aiming to achieve a Five Star Green Star rating from the Australian Building Council, and a Green Globe 21 accreditation. Green Globe is the global benchmarking, certification and improvement system for sustainable travel and tourism, established by the World Travel and Tourism Council.
They continually work towards sustainability and accreditation through participating in leading environmental sustainable programs and implementing new sustainable practices and programs in all aspects of operations at the Centre. As an example, only the freshest Northern Territory seafood makes it to the Centre’s kitchen, so it’s not unusual for dinner guests to dine on fresh, line-caught fish from that morning’s catch.
For further information on DCC's sustainable practices please visit: www.darwinconvention.com.au/about-us/sustainability
We all know how much that morning coffee helps get us through that first plenary session of the morning, but we urge all delegates to bring their reusable coffee cups with them.
If every delegate used a reusable coffee cup instead of a one-use takeaway option we could save over 4000 cups going into land fill at APS 2024 alone!
We also ask all delegates to bring a reusable water bottle with them to the conference. Water will be, of course, available throughout the event, however only glasses and jugs will be offered.