TechEd was Green
Two months after the event, I finally got around to posting a commentary on an aspect of Tech-Ed Africa that was so understated that I’m wondering if I attended the same event as everyone else. This year, Tech-Ed Africa really decided—maybe intentionally, maybe not—to be a very green event. By "green," I mean the whole environmental aspect. Here’s how they did it:
Delegate bags – One of the highlights of Tech-Ed has always been the delegate bag, which I generally use for the whole next year. They’re always great quality, but this year’s bags were made by Owl, and almost everything that made up the bag was from recycled materials.
Paperless – Missing from the bag was the usual pad of writing paper. Yes, less paper saves trees.
Presentation CDs/DVDs – At the end of the event, you used to get a CD/DVD with all the slides on it. Not this year: all had to be downloaded later. This is great for the environment, as it means fewer disks need to be made—which generally don’t get used much. As a speaker, it’s also great because it extended the deadline for submitting final slides to staff, meaning those last-minute tweaks now make it into the downloadable version.
Very interesting approach—would love to know if more was done and why it wasn’t pushed more.