Carbon costs of trade shows
10 December 2007
Electronics is a global industry and communications within it is vitally important. But, as Anand Sethi points out in his column this month, are we communicating in a responsible way?
We recently noted the conclusion of another highly successful (?) ‘Productronica’ show in Munich. Reports have it that there were 1484 exhibitors, 63,000 sq. metres (Gross) of exhibition space and some 40,000 visitors, of whom 45% were from overseas. Very impressive numbers indeed for an electronics production exposition and conference, but do bear in mind for the moment, there are other much larger exhibition events in Germany and elsewhere in the world, not to mention pure conferences!
Co-incidentally at about the same time as preparations were in final stages for the ‘Productronica’ show, an announcement was made regarding this year’s joint winners of the Nobel Peace Prize – Mr. Al Gore and the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), headed by the eminent Indian Scientist, Dr. Rajinder Pachauri. Further, at the time of the aforementioned show actually taking place, the IPCC was meeting in Valencia (Nov. 12 – 17, 2007) to prepare its final report to be presented at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Bali later that month and frankly some of the data coming out of the IPCC report relating to International travel and its consequences on Global warming were horrifying, to say the least.
Just one fact iterated here should, I think, suffice in justifying the paragraphs that follow. In 1992, Carbon Dioxide emissions from International Air Travel were some 500 million tones constituting some 13% of all Carbon Dioxide emissions from ALL transportation sources. But by 2050, the IPCC estimates, aircraft emissions will triple to an astounding 1.5 billion tonnes of Carbon Dioxide per year. Even at a conservative Carbon offset cost of $20 / tonne, we are facing a whopper problem of $30 billion.
This, inevitably, set one thinking about the carbon costs of international trade shows and conferences where exhibitors and attendees, not to mention cargo, come from all over. Let us do some quick (and rough) calculations based on the recently concluded ‘Productronica’ show.
As noted, there were some 40,000 attendees at the show of whom some 45% were from outside Germany. On a conservative estimate about 10,000 (as there were surely longer distance travelers from the US, China, India et. al.) of the 18,000 overseas attendees would have flown at least the equivalent of a London – Munich – London (1200 miles) round trip by air. Now let us use the following data from the authoritative Swiss agency “Atmosfair” (Other agencies have slightly differing valuations):
- Carbon Dioxide emissions: 0.54 tonnes / 1000 passenger air miles
- Cost to Offset the Carbon emission: $14.87 / 1000 passenger air miles
This gives a carbon offset cost of $17.84 per overseas attendee flying in by air
(average of London – Munich – London) and a total attendee carbon offset cost of $178,400 just for the air travel for this one show.
To this one needs to add Carbon offset costs for, at least the following:
(a) Car Travel @ 160 gms. of Carbon Dioxide per kilometer driven and Train travel @ 40 gms per kilometer.
(b) Air Freight emissions @ 6 tonnes of Carbon Dioxide per tonne of freight / 1000 Air Km.
(c) Cost of heating the 60,000 + sq. mtrs. of the cavernous exhibition halls.
(d) Cost of travel by the exhibitors.
(e) Electricity consumption for the halls and exhibits.
It is thus plain to see, at least to me, that each such international event (SMT, Nuremberg – 26,000 attendees; Nepcon, Shanghai – 17,000 attendees; APEX – 10,000 attendees etc.) would require several hundred thousands of dollars in Carbon Offset costs and certainly a lot of ‘guilt’. Al Gore, please note!!
Let me get this clear. I am not specifically targeting ‘Productronica’ or its organisers and certainly have no intention to cause offence. I am only using it for easy calculations as some figures are well known and the readers of this piece are more familiar with this show. As stated in the initial paragraph, there are much larger events in Germany and elsewhere in the world. Just to put it in perspective, Germany itself has annually 140 major International Trade fairs with 170,000 exhibitors, 23 venues and some 10 million attendees of whom some 20% are overseas visitors. The greatest carbon emitters would of course have to be the major international ‘Air Shows’, the likes of Farnborough, Paris, Dubai and Singapore with multiple thousands of visitors and all the flying by high performance aircraft over several days!
Of course, there are all the other International Conferences, jamborees organized by the U.N./ EU / ASEAN / SAARC / World Bank / NGO’s etc., and Annual Sales Conferences (some no more than ego boosting and networking events for the few select) galore. Just in Europe there are reportedly some 2.5 million international conference events at 6000 + venues with 290 million attendees every year. So worldwide we are talking some 5 million conferences, with shall we say 400 million attendees. Even if 25% of these are international attendees traveling the equivalent of London – Munich – London by Air and using the $17.84 Carbon Offset figure per attendee, as derived above, we are staring at an annual offset figure of some $1.8 billion.
Thus, if my logic is right, International Expositions and Conferences require TODAY a mind boggling $3 billion or so worth of Carbon Offsets and this could easily rise to $7.5 billion plus by the year 2050 representing 25% of the total $30 billion problem mentioned earlier. More to the point, this problem would constitute a third of a billion tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually. What this entails can be easily garnered by watching Al Gore’s masterful presentation, “An Inconvenient Truth”!
So now that we have the scale of this enormous problem, what are the options and solutions? After all, the expositions and conferences business is a vital part of international business, and dare one say, the political scene. Most important of all is to spread the message globally that such a problem exists. I realise that this sector is a bit of a ‘holy cow’. The world’s airlines and hotels are hugely dependent on this. Many countries and major global cities have promotional bureaus for expositions and conferences. Many tourist destinations and hotel chains have spent large sums of money to promote and propagate this business. Exposition and conference organizers, as also the many ancillaries make large sums of money from this sector.
A pointer is given by the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol whereby industrial units in developed countries exceeding their carbon emission quotas need to purchase equivalent carbon credits from approved ‘Green’ projects in developing countries. The obvious solution then is to ensure ‘CARBON NEUTRAL’ events. The German Convention Bureau has, for example, made a good beginning in this regard. Their website carries a ‘Carbon Calculator’ on the basis of which they try and invest the equivalent of the carbon offset from events into good wind energy projects. Event organising companies could also purchase ‘carbon credits’ as is done by industrial units.
Another possible solution, though with some obvious limitations (such as for live Air Shows), is to organise ‘Virtual’ events i.e. using the internet, modern communications technologies and appropriate software. This is not as far fetched as it may sound. A beginning has already been made in Japan and India in this regard. It is possible for exposition organisers to have participating exhibitors set up their product exhibits in their own premises with attendant staff standing by during the designated days and times of the event. An ‘attendee’ can then log into the given website (free for those sponsored by exhibitors, others may pay a small log on fee) and navigate on to the companies of interest where they can see products of interest and interact live with the exhibitor’s staff via a good broadband internet connection.
True, appropriate event software needs to be tweaked somewhat but that should not be difficult to do for, as an example, a good Indian speciality software company. After all they are now able to write special software such as ‘half volley’ (from Swantha Software) that enables Rafael Nadal to improve his game against Roger Federer. What of course cannot be ‘virtually’ provided is the free booze and other hospitality, an essential part of International events these days. Gift vouchers are indeed not quite the same thing!
It would be very interesting to receive feedback from readers to this column. I am sure many would have great suggestions and comments to make. In the meanwhile, a very happy Christmas and a happy New Year, bearing in mind that there won’t be too many in the future unless we tackle the devil of carbon emissions now!
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