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A greener meeting.
The local organizing committee for the SMBE 2027 meeting in Quebec City has a clear sustainability goal: to take specific steps to reduce the meeting's overall environmental footprint. We are all enthusiastic about taking action now. We propose different ways to address this at the Quebec City conference:
1) The local organizing committee worked on several on-site measures to reduce the overall environmental impact of the conference.
Reducing at the Source Several measures will be taken to minimize our environmental footprint during the congress, in collaboration with the Québec Conference center.
a) Plastic Reduction
- Plastic-free delegate materials
- Water for all events is provided in pitchers or fountains instead of bottles
b) General Waste Reduction
- Plastic-free and low-waste coffee breaks. e.g., real cups for coffee, bulk dispensers for milk, cream, juice, sugar, and butter; Utensils provided, wooden coffee stirrers (not plastic)
- Plastic-free and zero-waste lunches (reusable dishes, no lunch boxes, compostable dishes and napkins are used during cocktail hours , the kitchen has composting and recycling bins, etc.)
- Commitment to recovering at least 80% of the waste and compostable products generated by all conference activities.
- The conference center distributes any uneaten food that hasn't left the kitchen to shelters and halfway houses.
c) Reducing carbon footprint at the source
- Menus feature local products
Transportation
- We will offer a weekly transportation pass upon registration.
- We encourage travel by train and bus for those with commutes of less than 12 hours. The train and bus stations are located downtown and are easily connected to the convention center.
- We have prioritized hotels within walking distance (for most options where blocks of rooms are booked) or along a major public transportation route (for a few less expensive options, such as the Laval University campus residence).
- We will organize a team of volunteers to meet delegates at the airport and direct them to public transportation. We will give them their weekly transit pass, which must be reserved during registration.
- The main meeting venue and the banquet venue are a (beautiful) 5-minute walk from each other.