Sustainability Commitments

EHFG’s overarching mission, strategy, and decision-making is driven by the Sustainable Development Goals. As Europe’s leading health policy platform, we regard it as our responsibility to explore a whole-of-society approach in tackling sustainability challenges through our events and communications.

EHFG is fully committed to ensuring the conference is carbon positive with minimal environmental impact, whilst being socially sustainable. EHFG commits to the measures below in delivering its annual conference and events.

Travel

• Inviting conference participants / delegates to travel by train, rather than by plane. In partnership with the Salzburg regional government, EHFG delegates can book free train journeys between Salzburg and Bad Hofgastein. 

• Coordination of shared airport shuttle transfers, where possible. All shuttle transfers, and ground arrangements, are offset to be carbon positive.

• Offsetting of unavoidable operational emissions (CDM Gold Standard), including all flights booked by the EHFG.

• Ensuring team members travel by train within Austria and neighbouring countries.

• Encouraging partners to offset unavoidable flights for onsite session panellists.

Food, drink, and accommodation

• All conference lunches are vegetarian with vegan options, and conference dinner menus are beef free.

• We request food suppliers to source local, seasonal, and organic ingredients, as a priority, and provide plentiful vegetarian and plant-based meal options.

Conference operations

• The EHFG conference site uses 100% renewable energy sources (energy mix in quantity order: local hydropower, wind, biomass, solar, and biogas).

• Using hybrid conference technology allowing optional speaker and delegate online attendance, helping to reduce travel emissions.

• All materials and decorative features used on-site are either recycled, upcycled and / or biodegradable.

• Eliminating the use of single use plastic is prioritised, replaced with compostable materials. Only reusable plastic is used and collected e.g. name badge holders.

• Recycling facilities are provided on-site including paper, plastics, and cans.

• We use digital interfaces as a first choice option and as an alternative to printed publications - where printing is unavoidable, eco-labelled / FSC paper is used. Partner stands are encouraged to be paper free.

• Drinking water is provided from dispensers throughout the conference site, allowing the use of reusable containers and glassware.

• Our participants are supplied with a practical canvas bag that can be reused for other purposes.

Community

• Prioritising the employment of local service providers.

• Marginalised groups and NGOs are proactively included into conference sessions, whilst ensuring representation of all stakeholder groups and young health professionals, a fair gender balance, and incorporating pan-European and global voices.

• Communicating our commitments to our network and the health community, sharing our experience-based knowledge and lessons learned.

• A sustainability officer will be available on-site for any queries or, advice, and exchange with participants.

Please share any thoughts or ideas you have on how we can continue to improve in this area, in order to keep the EHFG community and its strong personal and professional connections and networks alive, but at the same time commit to becoming sustainable.