What Can YOU Do?
...to help us reduce the total carbon footprint of the event?
...to reduce your own carbon footprint before, during and after the event?
Before going to Aalborg you can:
Choose to travel to Aalborg by train and other means of public transportation rather than by plane
- If you travel from within Europe, we urge you to consider train travel rather than flying. On the German railway site Deutschebahn.de you can find an easy-to-use travelling guide, showing you how to get from your destination in Europe to Aalborg, your time in transit, the cost of the trip and how much CO2 your travel is estimated to emit when travelling by car, plane and train.
- If you however do choose to fly to Aalborg and fly with SAS, a carbon offset of 2% of the ticket price will be sponsored by SAS. You furthermore have the option during registration to pay any amount of €5 carbon offsets, which will go directly toward carbon offset projects.
Pick a hotel that pays careful attention to its own carbon footprint
- Quality Hotel and Scandic Hotel both fall into this category. Quality Hotel is furthermore directly connected to the conference venue: Aalborg Kongres & Kultur Center. Read more here about Quality Hotel’s environmental initiatives, and here about those of Scandic.
While in Aalborg you can:
Walk, grab a City-Bike, or use public transportation when you have to go somewhere
- The Kongres & Kultur Center, hotels, restaurants, shopping and entertainment is in Aalborg all very conveniently located near the center and within walking distance, making it easy for you to go anywhere by foot, and often it will even be just as fast as taking a taxi. You will even find that you can route many of the walks through city parks or along the waterfront.
- Aalborg has 135 public city bikes at your leisure if you need to go a little further or don't want to walk. Simply find one of the 19 city-bike stations, put DKK 20 into it to unlock, use it for as long as you want and then return it at a station to get your DKK 20 back. If you pack lightly, there is even the option to take a city bike between the airport and the center, which will take only 20-30 minutes.
- Aalborg has a hybrid City Circle bus driving free of charge between major attractions in the city, so use it not only to emit less CO2 but also to save money. Find out more about the bus, the stops and the schedule here. For a map of regular bus routes and -stops, you can go here.
Eat and shop locally
- Transportation of food and goods is responsible for considerable CO2 emissions. You can avoid these emissions by buying locally produced goods and eating at restaurants that focus on local food. Examples of two such restaurants in Aalborg are Mortens Kro and Nordens Folkekøkken (website only in Danish).
Consider your use of paper during the event
- You don't always need to print the papers that you initially think you need to print. Think twice before printing and consider if you could instead just scribble a few notes on some papers you already have, or if you could just find the documents online again instead. When you do print or copy, then try to use both sides of the paper whenever possible.
Switch off lights and unused electrical appliances
- If you' are in rooms where you can control the light, don’t turn on more than you need, and switch them off again when you leave. If people need the lights later, let them turn it back on. If they forget to do so, then they didn't really need them.
- The same goes for the lights in your hotel as well as the TV, your laptop, and any other electrical appliances that you might use. Leave them on when you use them and off when you don’t.
Drink tap water
- The tap water in Denmark is just as tasty and healthy as anything you can buy in a bottle. It is also free, and much better for the environment, as it doesn’t require the manufacturing or transportation of water bottles. Purchase or bring a bottle once, and then fill that one up in any bathroom whenever it's empty.
After leaving Aalborg you can:
Find out more
Take what you've learned here and adapt it to your everyday life
- Don't consider the above suggestions to be relevant only while you're in Aalborg. Think about your carbon footprint every day, and you will soon find that environmental behavior and economic behavior often go hand in hand.
Spread the word
- If you think abatement is important, then tell others about it, but consider realistically when you might be able to influence the behavior of others, and when you might just be annoying.
Help us evaluate
- Shortly after the event you will receive an e-mail from the Danish Centre for Environmental Assessment, containing a link to a questionnaire about your carbon related behavior during the event. We wish to find out if the information and encouragement that you have found on these pages has in any way affected your behavior before, during or after the event. We are grateful for your participation.