EUROPEAN CLIMATE PACT
In August 2022, EAERE was included as non profit organisation in the European Climate Pact, an EU-wide initiative inviting people, communities and organisations to: connect and share knowledge; learn about climate change; develop, implement and scale up solutions. Citizens, organisations and groups can get involved in the European Climate Pact in many ways; one of them is committing to take concrete action and sharing these actions with others to inspire them to join.
EAERE is putting a special effort in organising future annual conferences as hybrid events. Hybrid conferences contribute to bringing potential added benefits such as expanded reach and increased attendance, enhanced opportunities for attendees travelling from less developed countries, reduced environmental impact, and reduced travel costs for attendees, speakers, and supporters.
In November 2022 EAERE set up a Committee on Sustainability and EAERE Conferences, which aims to discuss issues related to the sustainability of the EAERE Annual Conferences, such as the management of the conference logistics, the design of incentives to good sustainability behaviour by participants, the criteria for selecting the conference organiser and location, etc.
EAERE commits to giving participants in its Annual Conferences the possibility to offset the CO2 emissions related to their participation in the meetings and thereby successfully contribute to decreasing the EAERE Conferences’ carbon footprint. In 2024, people registering for the 2024 Annual Conference were offered the possibility to compensate for their emissions with a contribution supporting two selected projects: “Protecting peat” by Natuurpunt aiming at protecting and expanding peatlands in Flanders in a valley close to Leuven, the Conference location, and “Agroforestry in Flanders” by Treecological aiming at enabling investment in the transition to agroforestry through compensation for farmers for the carbon captured by the planted trees and shrubs.
Read EAERE’s pledge on the European Climate Pact platform at this link.
EUROPEAN CLIMATE AMBASSADOR
In February 2022, EAERE Past President Phoebe Koundouri was appointed as European Climate Ambassador: as EAERE President, EIT Climate KIC HUB director, UN SDSN Europe co-chair, she will act as an ambassador for the Climate Pact and advocate for active participation of “all parts of society” – researchers, innovators and technology developers, enterprises, workers, consumers and citizens and their organizations- for mobilizing the transition to climate neutrality and the implementation of the EGD and the UN SDGs.
