Workshop: Greening the European Public Health conferences, and beyond
Authors:   Organised by: EUPHA, EUPHA (HIA), EUPHA (ENV) Chair persons: Rainer Fehr - Germany, Peter Van Den Hazel - EUPHA (ENV)
Published: November 2019

Climate change is real; and its health implications are numerous and serious. The UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) include responsible consumption (SDG 12) and climate action (SDG 13). Scientific conferences are significant and regularly recurring components of professional life. They represent major opportunities, e.g., of information exchange, networking and quality assurance. At the same time, they involve major amounts of traveling as well as other resource-intensive activities.

For several years now, based on a perspective of sustainability and professional credibility, EUPHA has taken steps of caring about the impact on environment and health, especially of “greening” the EPH conferences. This includes efforts to learn from other associations and institutions. Within EUPHA, a “Green Club” was formed to develop suggestions and to promote the issue.

The intention is to reduce the “ecological footprint”, including less resource consumption and fewer emissions. But “greening” our conferences turns out to be no trivial task. In some respects (e.g. air travel), the environmental and health implications are obvious, but to establish benign alternatives is challenging. In other respects (e.g. catering/regional food), the implications of different alternatives can be much harder to identify.

An important element of current debate on climate protection is “climate compensation”, i.e. paying for compensation measures in proportion to the approximate production of CO2, e.g. from travel activities. This is offered by various providers), and often can be included during the booking procedure. There is, however, a debate questioning the rationale, pointing at technical and/or ethical difficulties implied in this approach. Given the state of climate change, it is urgent to continue the debate and to intensify practical action.

Key issues for this workshop include the following: What has been achieved so far? What experiences were made, e.g. concerning usability of tools? Can quantification of emissions from our conferences (especially from air travel) contribute to increasing awareness and to moving towards solutions? What tasks lie ahead? What specific suggestions can be given, e.g., for the 2020 World Congress Public Health in Rome?

Clearly, in tune with the SDGs, the same “footprint” metaphor applies - beyond our conferences - to regular work (in offices, labs, fieldwork and duty travel), private travel, recreation, and daily life at large. It is an open question if it is better to integrate such issues into one “integrative” (and complex) approach, or to deal with these issues “one by one”, which might take ages to achieve; or what other ways towards “greening” our lives should be taken. For such discussion, it will be useful to continue cooperation with other professional associations and/or institutions, facing similar challenges.

Key messages

For reasons of responsibility and credibility, professional associations need to care about their ecological footprint; EUPHA created a “Green Club” and explores practical measures for “greening”. Both resource consumption and emissions from EPH conferences are considerable, calling for intensified action, e.g. provision of evidence, awareness-building, and promotion of eco-friendly options.