What a lot of hot air!

We all agree the conference in February was a success, with businesses there to spread good environmental practice and an opportunity to celebrate the Creating the Greenest County award winners. We have now calculatd the Carbon Footprint to see how well we did reducing our carbon emissions

Public transport was on offer to encourage sustainable transport by attendees. ‘One’ railway (now National Express East Anglia) generously offered 20 free rail tickets for attendees, and there was also free travel on First’s superoute 66 from the train station, through the town centre to Adastral Park, whilst Suffolk County Council provided a free shuttle bus service between the Martlesham Park and Ride and the conference venue using its new lower emission busses. After the event ended, attendees were offered free transport back into Ipswich town centre on the Park and Ride service.

The Carbon Footprint

Based on the 103 complete responses received (a response rate of 41%), we estimate that around 1.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide were emitted by vehicles transporting delegates to the conference. This represents a 39% decrease on the October 2007 conference. However, as there were fewer attendees, the carbon footprint per delegate actually increased slightly to 6.0 kg/person. This was largely as a result of the increase in numbers of visitors arriving at the conference by car. However, we should remember that Suffolk is a largely rural county and that Adastral Park is not the most central location, meaning that in many cases there really is no alternative to the car.

Nevertheless, there are some positives to be recorded; 46% of those arriving by car were part of a car-share arrangement. Indeed, had all delegates arrived as the sole occupant of a medium sized car, the footprint would have been 45% (0.69 tonnes) higher than it was. In addition, the shuttle service from the Martlesham Park and Ride was well patronised, and hopefully experiencing the P&R facilities will encourage more attendees to use it in the future.

Number Crunching
The breakdown of journeys to the conference was as follows: