Resources

Printing conference programmes that fill the bins afterwards is a waste of trees, water and energy, even if they end up in the paper recycling bin. Printing the programmes on paper made of recycled material for all participants would require 3,353 kg waste paper, 61,372 litres of water, 12,558 kWh of energy and 2,652 kg of CO². We therefore provide a conference app that provides all this information instead. Additionally, there are info screens and info points at the venue. If you have opted out of receiving a printed programme: thanks for your support to make ECER greener!

When printing the venue booklet, we paid attention to make it as concise as possible, using A5 size and paper of recycled material to reduce its environmental impact as much as possible.
Wherever paper is absolutely necessary on this conference, we use paper made of recycled material. To compare the needed resources for an average pack of printing paper (500 sheets), here some data that compare recycling paper to fresh fibre paper:

• 2.8 kg of waste paper vs. 7.5 kg of wood
• 51.1 litres vs. 130.2 litres of water
• 10.5 kWh vs. 26.8 kWh of energy
• 2.2 kg vs. 2.6 kg of CO²

In 1990, the paper industry in Germany used about 49% recycled material. By the year 2017, this percentage had increased to 75, reducing the consumption of wood, water and energy per ton of paper considerably. However, the increased use of paper more than offsets these efficiency gains: in 2017, the German paper industry produced 77% more paper than in 1990 and the total amount of energy used in the production process increased by about 50%. Therefore, the greenest option is to reduce the amount of paper used!

Conference hand-outs are often used by part of the audience and for a short time only. Therefore, please consider saving these resources by offering to send the information afterwards by e-mail to those who are really interested in the paper.
If you absolutely need to print something, please make sure to use double-sided print!
The paper offered at the printing stations is made of recycled material. Using an average pack of printing paper (500 sheets) made of recycled material instead of fresh fibre paper saves about 4.7 kg of wood, 80 litres of water and 16 kWh of energy.

The lanyard that holds your badge is made of recycled PET. We would be glad to re-use the lanyards for future conferences. Therefore, please help us to save resources and avoid waste by returning them to us.

Freebies are a huge source of unnecessary waste. We therefore decided not to provide you with the umpteenth pen and notebook for the conference. Instead, you receive items that help to make this conference as green as possible: a coffee mug and the HVV ticket for free rides on busses, trains and ferries in Hamburg.
The bag in which you receive the items needed at the conference is made of fair trade organic cotton. We hope that you can use it many times also after the conference, as single-use cotton bags have a considerably higher environmental impact than single-use plastic bags (but they do biodegrade in turn). If you have already too many cotton bags at home, we are glad to take it back and pass it on to someone else.

There will be some exhibitors presenting their products at the ECER. In case they offer flyers and/or give-aways, please consider if you really need them! If you are interested in some information they can offer, we suggest that you take a photo of the brochure and check its content online later on. This entails also the advantage of having fewer things to carry during the conference and on your way home!