How
How We’re Going Green
The Conference
The 57th session of the conference will be run a little differently than you might remember. We’re making small changes that will have a large cumulative impact. Here are some of the actions we’ll be taking:
Projecting Resolutions rather than Printing Them
We’re going to secure many more screen projectors and computer hook-ups this year in order to project all proposed resolutions electronically and eliminate the need to print wasteful copies of the same document 50 times or more. If you need to print something during the conference, there will still be printers available. We will be accepting small donations – a quarter per print will be encouraged, but whatever you’re able to contribute is fine – that will be presented at the close of the conference to a fund that replants trees to offset our paper usage. The reams of paper we’ll save from projecting resolutions means that both trees and money won’t be unnecessarily wasted. Also, we’ll use fewer toner cartridges to print— which means there will be fewer chemicals being leached into the environment when those containers are thrown away.
Electronic Submission of Position Papers
Starting this year, position papers will be submitted online to committee chairs directly. In this way we cut back considerably on the paper used in the conference. All papers will need to be submitted electronically, and will be graded by your committee chairs and sent back electronically. Assuming each position paper has a length of 5 pages, and there are about 1,500 delegates attending our conference, we can anticipate saving at least 7,500 pieces of paper! (All of you overachievers out there can now sleep soundly, knowing that your 50-page position paper won’t kill a single tree!)
Supporting Local, Eco-Friendly Restaurants
When you arrive at the conference, we’ll be letting you know about restaurants that serve locally sourced and environmentally-sustainable foods (and if we can, we’ll get you some coupons to use to put sustainable food to the test!)
Encouraging the use of Tap Water
We’re also working on a way to provide all participants in the conference with nearby access to tap water. Please avoid the use of bottled water if you are able. (Did you know that 40% of bottled water is actually just tap water from somewhere in the U.S.? Find out more here) We’re planning to secure locations on campus that have nearby working water fountains, and we’re asking you to participate by bringing in your own re-usable water bottle. Of course, if you’re not sure where to get one, or want to sport some super-cool BMUN gear, we’ve got you covered.
New, Eco-Friendly BMUN items to be sold at the Conference!
We’re planning to introduce a new eco-friendly type of BMUN gear that will be sold at the conference along with the customary t-shirts: Klean Kanteens, re-useable water bottles that are convenient, lightweight, and also superior to Nalgenes because they’re made of durable, non-leaching stainless steel. With our logo decorating the side of the bottle, you’ll be stylish and show off your interest in international issues and eco-awareness all at the same time!
The Club
In order to achieve a more sustainable conference, we’re making some changes to the way we run the club. Here are just a few of the things we’ll be doing internally during the academic year to prepare:
*Recycling and composting at the weekly meetings we hold throughout the academic year
*Reducing our paper waste – this is an area where you can contribute! Let us know that you want to receive all correspondence via email here
*Cutting back on the bottled water we use at the conference – read why here
Events-planning, after all, can be an incredibly wasteful business if careful consideration is not made to the aftereffects of the actions of large congregations of people. We hope that, with the appointment of the Sustainability Coordinator, Berkeley Model United Nations will spark a trend among other MUN conferences to encourage them to become more aware of the impact these types of event-planning activities, and long-distance traveling, can have on the environment.
By the time you see us at the conference in 2009, all of our secretariat will be well-trained in the many ways to live sustainably. While we can’t realistically become entirely carbon-neutral, we’re going to come as close as we can!
If you have any questions about the changes that are going to take place in the 57th session of BMUN, you can contact our sustainability coordinator at sustainability@bmun.net
If you have any suggestions about other things we can do to go greener, we’d love to hear them, too!