Handbook Sustainability Input at Contributor Day at WCEU2024

[meeware]

Issue to manage the contributions to the handbook at the contributor day.

We're working on this new 'Sustainable Events' Handbook: https://make.wordpress.org/sustainability/handbook/sustainable-events/

[niklasmosel]

Ideas:

1. Carsharing plattform like BlaBlaCar but for WordCamp, which is promoted on europe.wordcamp.org
2. Limit the merch of sponsors? Or review the merch they want to bring?
3. Choose the venue on sustainability points or ask them to make it more sustainable (e.g. much plastic at WordCamp 2024 in Torino)
4. Create a Map or gather information where the attendees are from, so we can find a location that is reachable by train for many people
5. For travelling you could use https://www.ecopassenger.org/ to see how much carbon dioxide etc. you will spend and you can compare car, train and airplane
6. Carbon Offset partnership (e.g. https://www.atmosfair.de/en/) and add an optional possibility to equalise/compensate the carbon

[meeware]

Looking at the Location page: https://make.wordpress.org/sustainability/handbook/sustainable-events/location/

Discussion:
We can consider the 'audience' for an event - is it a local or regional event? what is the nominal 'catchment area' for your event.
If you have an idea of that, and some optional locations, you can use an 'isochron' (also known as IsoChrone) tool to work out the travel time to that location from the surrounding area. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isochrone_map

Good listing here:
https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Isochrone

Examples:
https://traveltime.com/ - commercial offering with api

https://commutetimemap.com/map?places=45.067755%253B7.682489%253B0%253B3600%253B%25234143f4 (Only covers up to 1hr transport. Covers train, car etc) Example shows Turin.

[KarinChristen]

Carsharing plattform

The journey is always very personal. Some members of the community prefer to arrive earlier, while others turn it into a team retreat. However, the return journey could be an opportunity for us to coordinate. Perhaps we could arrange a way where individuals can express interest during the conference or when registering, so that those who want to travel home together can do so.

[meeware]

Epectations around WordCamp Scale:
Until very recently we officially had only Regional (EU, US, and Asia) and city WordCamps, with national ones discouraged. This seems to be evolving. It will be good to get an update on the scale of events as City/National/Regional events have different types of sustainability challenges. Especially around travel.

[meeware]

Created a pull request to work on editing the travel page.

Please take a look and lets work together on extending the advice and recommendations.

[ingrideriksson]

For the traveling section: https://make.wordpress.org/sustainability/handbook/sustainable-events/traveling/

Help organisers by adding copy paste information/links for the traveling section.

Research and add links to websites with information to sustainable travel worldwide, e.g. for traveling by train seat61.com
Recommend carbon offset for flights. Either by links in the travel section or for WCEU/WCUS/WCAsia in combination with buying your ticket.

Food and catering https://make.wordpress.org/sustainability/handbook/sustainable-events/catering/

At the registration for a WordCamp, offer vegetarian as the default food option and make people who want to eat meat/fish (omnivore) to choose that.

[lironmil]

Adding external links to the Handbook could be problematic:

• Technical: we can't rely on the Man in Seat 61 or any other blogger to keep their blog online, or to redirect posts we've linked to, which would most likely lead to link rot.
• Greenwash: if we add a link to Ecopassanger, we endorse—on behalf of WordPress—the Siemens Group. Siemens, like any other corporate entity, has its own interests and agenda, and it's not our job to promote them.

WordPress has no general external links policy, so I propose we adopt the guidelines recommended by the Developer Blog.

@niklasmosel

1. I agree with @KarinChristen's suggestion above and included relevant in the Traveling section.
2. I think limiting is "above our pay grade" :-) The Swag section is quite opinionated in advocating for a "less is more" approach, wouldn't you agree
3. Anything we missed?
4. Nice! How about adding "Carbon Offset partnership" to Sponsors?

@meeware
The location section is generalized on purpose, as there are huge differences and various considerations: logistics, financial, personal, etc. I think sticking with "the rule of thumb" guidelines is a sensible option, as these would surely be adapted depending on the location. Let's trust organizers to make the best decisions.

@ingrideriksson

Food and catering https://make.wordpress.org/sustainability/handbook/sustainable-events/catering/
At the registration for a WordCamp, offer vegetarian as the default food option and make people who want to eat meat/fish (omnivore) to choose that.

Great idea!