INTERNATIONAL SOLID WASTE ASSOCIATION - Denkstatt

delegates and it is clear that ISWA will choose conference
locations all over the world in order to fulfil its mission of
promoting sustainable waste management worldwide.
As a consequence, the only option for reducing the climate
impact – apart from finding venues which are close to
international airports – is carbon offsetting: Donating a
certain amount of money enables projects that save the
climate by investing in renewable energy or reforestation.
For this year’s congress in South Korea, ISWA has called
the delegates’ attention to private offsetting. Among
the vast number of possible organisations for offsetting,
ISWA recommends three with high credibility: “Climate
Friendly” is the preferred partner of the WWF for offsetting.
“My climate” uses reliable calculations and offers good
offsetting projects. “Atmosfair” has received several
awards for its activities.
For next year’s congress ISWA plans to include the option
of voluntary carbon offsetting at the time of registration.
In order to guarantee the financial support of a good
project, ISWA plans to select a special climate saving
project in the area of waste management such as energy
use of landfill gas. This measure will decouple CO2 emissions
from the number of delegates and the location of the
congress.
Travel Carbon Emission ISWA World Congresses 2007 – 2010
2,500
5.0
2,158
4.5
Total CO2-emissions of all flights (tons CO2 equivalent)
2,000
1,500
1,000
500
1,256
1.8
3.4
1,195
1.8
847
1.1
4.0
3.5
3.0
2.5
2.0
1.5
1.0
Carbon Emission per Delegate (tons CO2 equivalent)
0.5
0.0
Amsterdam
2007
Singapore
2008
Lisbon
2009
Hamburg
2010
Total CO2-emissions of all flights (tons)
Average CO2-emissions per delegate (tons)
33
1 )
Each calculation mentioned in this chapter relies on carbon dioxide equivalent (CDE). For matters of simplification just the term “CO2” is used in the text.
2 )
The calculation is based on www.atmosfair.de. If the home city of a delegate was unknown, the calculation was based on travelling from the capital of
his/her home country. For small countries with several airports a median distance was used for the calculation. Travels of delegates from the host country
are only included in the flight calculation if the travelling distance is more than 600 km. All travels of delegates arriving from other countries are considered
as flights except for distances below 200 km.