Trade fairs, annual general meetings, conferences, festivals, pop concerts – there are many reasons for people to gather. Unfortunately, they affect not only the social climate. Every event produces atmosphere-warming greenhouse gas emissions, through travel to and from the event location, electricity and heating, catering and waste disposal, and other activities. Some of these emissions can be avoided, while others currently cannot.
Emissions sources at events and their typical distribution:
- Travel to and from location: 70 %
- Accommodation: 15 %
- Catering: 10 %
- Energy consumption, infrastructure and premises: 5 %
Offsetting your event, step by step
- step – avoid: Plan ahead to avoid carbon emissions. When choosing an event location, ask if they use renewable electricity. Motivate your guests to choose more climate-friendly transportation by providing information on public transport or rebates for train tickets . Read more tips for reducing emissions in the Guidelines for the Environmentally Sound Organisation of Events by the German Federal Ministry for the Environment and the Federal Environmental Agency.
- step – calculate: Not all event-related emissions can be avoided. To calculate your event’s carbon footprint, consider the location as well as variable parameters. Based on your input, atmosfair can calculate the climate impact of your event. Are you planning a large-scale event and looking for help with reducing and calculating emissions? Talk to us!
- step – offset: The final step is offsetting your event emissions with atmosfair. You will receive a logo for your „CO₂ offset event“, which you can utilise in communications. Offsetting contributions are tax-deductible in Germany
Our new CO₂ event calculator - take a demo tour and see for yourself
Calculate and offset event-related carbon emissions
When you have considered all possibilities to reduce your event’s carbon footprint, you can calculate remaining emissions and offset them with atmosfair. You will receive a certificate for your contribution from us, which you can share with event participants. Need help planning and communicating your CO₂ offset event? Talk to us!
To calculate the CO₂ footprint of your event, we have developed a digital Online-tool based on the VDR standard. This allows you to calculate your event emissions in a short time or estimate them with our help if data is missing. Afterwards, you can make your climate protection contribution in the amount of the calculated emissions directly with atmosfair. Your benefit: You receive your offsetting certificate immediately and hassle-free. You can also find two sample calculations for typical events below: for a family event with 40 people and a conference with 150 participants from around Europe.
Calculation methodology
atmosfair calculates carbon emissions from events based on the VDR standard for business travel, a comprehensive method for calculating event-related emissions. The method was jointly developed by atmosfair and VDR, the German trade association of travel managers.
The calculation is normally based on statistics as well as variables – including data for event locations and their energy consumption (using either records for your event location or mean data for building types collected by atmosfair ) as well as duration, number of participants, overnight stays, catering, travel to and from the event location as well as on site, and the transportation of goods.
Sounds complicated? Don’t worry! Our CO₂ event calculator will do all the work for you! And even if you can’t record all the necessary data, our event calculator can already make calculations and estimates based on some basic data. In any case, the online tool guides you step by step through the detailed CO₂ accounting – completely free of charge. This gives you an overview of your emissions and reduction potential. You can then easily offset any unavoidable residual emissions in the CO₂ event calculator. You will receive a corresponding certificate directly afterwards.
Need help planning and communicating your climate-friendly event? Talk to us!
Feedback about our CO₂ event calculator can be sent to us directly here.
Carbon mitigation projects
To offset the carbon emissions associated with your event, you can support one of our carbon mitigation projects. They not only avoid CO₂, emissions, but also contribute to sustainable development through technology transfer and reduced poverty. We develop and operate our own mitigation projects, which allows maximum control and transparency as well as lower costs by cutting the middle men.
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