Greetings NCECA Pals!
The NCECA Portland Team has been working hard to make our 2017 conference good and sustainable and we want you to go green with us!
Check it out:
Ideas for lessening your personal conference footprint this NCECA:
1) Take the MAX to and from the airport. There’s a MAX station right outside the doors of the Portland International Airport. The train is speedy and scenic and will take you right into the center of Portland (or wherever else you’re going) and you can just as easily take it back when the conference is over! Public transit is a great way to minimize your use of fossil fuels!
2) Take Public Transit the whole time you’re here! Every person who registers for the full conference will get a Portland Public Transit Pass for the duration of the conference! Many of the off-site exhibitions will be walk-able or easily accessible by public transit and there’s even this handy dandy Transit Tracker App you can download for your smart phone. Do we have you covered, or do we have you covered?
3) Check out Portland’s shiny new bike-share program, BikeTown. The program has 1,000 bikes and 100 stations across the city. You can purchase a single ride for $2.50, or a day pass for $12 and show up to the off-site exhibitions in style (the bikes are orange, plan your outfits accordingly). And of course there’s a fancy app you can use to make purchases and locate stations. Make sure to pack a helmet if you plan on biking around this NCECA– the bike rental doesn’t come with one and we want your noggin safe!
New Policies for a Greener Conference in 2017:
The Oregon Convention Center and the city of Portland have shown leadership in concerns of environmental sustainability. A recently updated waste management policy in the convention center prohibits single-use plastic bags, foam core (for signage), and other environmentally unsustainable materials. If you are planning to bring promotional materials to the conference, NCECA wants you to know early on that at our Spring 2016 board meeting we determined to establish some reasonable limits on how and how much paper promotional material will be permitted in the convention center. Rather than in hallways, there will be a designated space for free distribution of promotional materials within the Reading Room. The area will be maintained by a volunteer, and attendees will be limited to distributing no more than 500 pieces per conference. Anyone wishing to distribute materials more broadly might consider a bag insert with NCECA, details can be found here.
And be sure to check out https://www.oregoncc.org/about/sustainability for more info on the Portland Convention Center’s sustainability and waste diversion policies.
Yay GreeNCECA!
