The Regional Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning (RMESP) organized the “industrial symbiosis demonstration projects” workshop on 19 and 20 of June in 2018. With the goal of achieving a carbon neutral event, RMESP has calculated the carbon footprint and design a forestry activity in order to compensate the event’s carbon footprint.
Every year, hundreds of events have place in Europe. The organizers of these events have a big environmental responsibility. In the same way an industry is responsible for its emissions, the event’s organizers have to take in mind that emissions associated to events have its part of guilty in the global climate change.
On 19 and 20 of June was celebrated in Seville the workshop “industrial symbiosis demonstration projects”. 55 people assisted to the event. The workshop’s carbon footprint has been calculated by means of emissions associated to transports and emissions associated to the electricity consumption.
Firstly, assistants were asked for their means of transport and the place where they came from by means of a questionnaire. In addition, emissions of the airport/train station transfers and emissions by 2 days stay per person were estimated. Secondly, the electricity consumption of the event has been estimated with the area of the room and the emission factor of the electricity supplier.
The surprising results of the carbon footprint calculation has been that the electricity consumption of the place where the event took place has only the 0,001 % of event’s emissions, 6,9 % is due to stays and 93 % are associated to transport, mainly transports by plane. The total emissions associated to the event has been 10,2 Tn CO2.
The design of a forestry activity have been based in the plantation of Pinus pinea. The study has estimated that 36 trees of Pinus Pinea is needed to plant in order to fix 10,2 Tn CO2 in 30 years.
The European Projects ,as a whole, must have a huge carbon footprint due to plane transports. The celebration of carbon neutral events must be a do in the development of European projects and a requirement in application forms.
