We note that the College's Calendar of Forthcoming Events lists 23 meetings that are to be held between November 2005 and October 2006. Of these 23 meetings, 2 are to be held outside the UK. The use of European venues for College meetings may well be cost-effective compared with the costs of UK venues, but these meetings will involve College members in short-haul flights which will impact on the global environment.
The concept of ‘food miles’ has become familiar since the publication of the Food Miles Report (Reference PaxmanPaxman, 1994) which highlighted the environmental effects of the rapid increase in distance which our food travels from producer to consumer. As individuals we are also now encouraged to measure our ‘carbon footprint’ as an indicator of our impact on the environment in terms of the volume of green house gases produced (http://www.carbonfootprint.com).
As a responsible organisation perhaps our College should take a lead in measuring its corporate carbon footprint. As a first step the College could adopt a ‘CPD miles’ labelling policy for its meetings. This would encourage meeting organisers to stop and think about whether their choice of venue is contributing to the damage that our generation is inflicting on the planet.
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