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2008 AALL Annual Meeting and Conference
Green Initiatives |
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Just as AALL’s efforts to maximize the power of the law library community are ongoing and ever-expanding, so too are our efforts to make our Annual Meeting and Conference "green" and lessen the negative impacts this event can have on our environment. We have taken progressive steps in this direction for the past few years and find Portland to be an ideal place to highlight these efforts and introduce new ones.
AALL’s Green Initiatives
- AALL dramatically reduced paper consumption by building an online program and workshop proposal collection site and by also putting the Educational Program Handout Materials Collection online. This has saved millions of pages of paper each year.
- At the conference, print-on-demand kiosks for handout materials now feature double-sided printers and post-consumer recycled paper.
- Educational program evaluations will be processed online for the first time this year. Instead of receiving paper forms, you will be able to evaluate the programs you attended online, which will save more than 75,000 printed pages. Check your e-mail for this link after the conference—you could win a prize!
- This year’s registration bag (sponsored by BNA) is made of recycled materials and includes a refillable water bottle to use in place of disposable cups at the water stations.
- Plastic name badges will be collected and recycled.
- Come to the new Member Services booth in the Exhibit Hall to pick up an AALL lanyard made of recycled material for your name badge—use it again at future meetings.
- AALL’s show daily newspaper is printed with soy-based inks (as opposed to petroleum-based) and on recycled-content paper.
Green Initiatives at our Host Facilities
The Oregon Convention Center (OCC) is the first convention center to receive certification under the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Existing Buildings’ (EB) rating system. Efforts include:
- The OCC offers a waste recycling and recovery program that includes pre-and post-consumer organic waste, cardboard, newspaper, plastics, glass bottles, wood pallets, cooking oil, and landscaping trimmings. All public areas inside the OCC have convenient, clearly marked recycling barrels for easy sorting.
- ARAMARK, the OCC’s food service company, serves condiments in large containers rather than wasteful individual packets. It donates pre-consumer meals to local homeless shelters. It also composts food waste and uses local, organically grown products whenever possible. ARAMARK even offers entire sustainable menu selections.
- The OCC’s Rain Garden features an extensive system that takes rainwater from the facility’s roof and filters it through a series of settling ponds and landscaping before it’s released into the nearby Willamette River.
- The grounds and the building exteriors are both designed to reduce the "heat islands" produced by asphalt, concrete, or open hard surface roofs. The use of natural habitat vegetation in landscaping and the facility’s roof design meet Energy Star requirements for emissivity and reflectance.
- The OCC is a top-level supporter of the Blue Sky Block program, Pacific Power’s voluntary wind-power purchase program. The Blue Sky Block program is one of three options giving Pacific Power’s Oregon customers a way to help grow the demand for renewable energy.
The Hilton Portland and Executive Tower, AALL’s Headquarters Hotel and the largest hotel in Oregon, earned the Green Seal Lodging Properties Certification and continues its work to decrease its impact on the environment and improve sustainability. Efforts include:
- Compact fluorescent light bulbs in all guestrooms
- Motion-sensor thermostats in all guestrooms
- Guest bathrooms use low-flow toilets and showerheads and smaller basins
- Linen and towel reuse program for multiple-night guests
- Used shampoo and conditioner bottles donated to a local shelter
- Consumer paper products made from recycled fibers
- Copy machines defaulted to double-sided printing
- Preference given to product suppliers who provide and take back reusable packing and shipping pallets
- Preference given to environmentally responsible service suppliers
- Left-over food is composted or donated to a local farm or charity
- Condiments served in bulk
- Recycling bins throughout all meeting space
- Eco-friendly materials and cleaning products
- Double-sided printing on post-consumer recycled paper.
AALL works closely with Ambassadors, our housing contractor, which has been incorporating best practices learned from more than 10 years of event management expertise. The company offers clients a more structured approach to include "green" policies into their own events and hotel negotiations. To view green efforts implemented by other AALL hotel properties, visit the online housing registration page and search through green initiatives provided by each property (once you’ve entered your arrival/departure dates).
Contractor Initiatives
Visit the following links to more of AALL’s valued
contractors to see what they are doing to help reduce our environmental impact:
Carbon Calculator Web Sites
The following Web sites showcase ways in which we can do our part to minimize our impact on the environment and take care of our planet.
Calculate your carbon footprint at one of these sites:
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