Sustainability
Sustainability at our Annual BACCN Conference
When planning our BACCN Conference we proactively manage our environmental impact in the planning of our annual Conference. Sustainability is increasingly important to us, our attendees and our exhibitors and we strive to make our event more responsible and play our part by keeping waste to a minimum and considering our carbon output. We communicate our desire to be more sustainable to our suppliers, sponsors, exhibitors and event staff, considering this at the very start of the project in our own planning.
We strive to:
- Remove single use plastic bottles and cups, replacing with 100% recyclable cups for use at water stations around the venue. We’ll actively encourage attendees to bring their own reusable water bottles and coffee mugs.
- Reduce or remove paper consumption using minimal print, a conference app and digital website content with all information required.
- Conference Guides will be printed by a Carbon Neutral company, Northern Print Solutions (see more about Northern Print Solutions below).
- Removed plastic badge holders and replaced with simple paper badges.
- Use recycled materials as much as possible with collateral from previous events such as lanyards and t-shirts
- Arranging one courier booking to transfer our event collateral to the venue rather than multiple trips
- Reduce face-to-face planning meetings by holding teleconferences and communicating via email, taking the train or car sharing where transport is required
- Encouraging attendees to share transport when travelling
- Working with the conference venue to minimise waste and recycle all that we can
- Work closely with our suppliers, sponsors and exhibitors to encourage them to consider their own footprint
- Choose venues to host our events in locations with good transport links
Northern Print Solutions is a Certified Carbon Capture® Company, meaning that they offer their customers the opportunity to carbon balance their print by taking part in the Carbon Capture® Scheme. The BACCN Conference is taking part in this scheme. Find out more about the scheme here.
BACCN Conference 2024 - Aberdeen
Venue - P&J Live
Our venue for 2024 has achieved a BREEAM rating, one of the highest environmental standards possible and are proud to be the most sustainable venue of its type in the UK. Part of the venue's design includes an innovative energy centre which uses food and garden waste from around Aberdeen, its then digested in a Anaerobic plant and the resulting hydrogen gas is harvested and used to power the energy centre which supplies Heating, Cooling and Power not only to P&J Live but also the onsite hotels. For information on all the ways that they meet their sustainable objectives, please visit their website here: P&J Live – Sustainability (pandjlive.com)
Delegate Gift Alternative
For the last couple of years, instead of giving every delegate a gift, we pledged to donate £2 for every attendee to a designated charity.
In 2023, in line with our conference title of "Recovery, Restoration and Sustainability", we decided to support Nurse Lifeline. BACCN donated £2 for every attendee in Nottingham to this amazing charity - read more about them below and on their website: www.nurselifeline.org.uk
We'll announce our plans for 2024 soon.
Catering at Conference
We're working with the venue to plan the menus for conference, both daytime and evening, to try reduce our environmental impact as much as we can. We'll update on this once we're closer to the event. For the past two years, we have provided an entirely plant-based menu on day two of the event, and will look to do something similar in 2024.