Courtesy of my old mucker James Governor, I see McAfee is leading the charge in greening up its events. Reporting about a recent conference held in Las Vegas, McAfee made sure it was as close to being carbon neutral as possible. By the numbers:

In support of its environmental commitments, McAfee took steps to “green” the event in advance. According to ICF International’s measurement, through a series of event planning decisions and participant education efforts, McAfee reduced the event’s carbon footprint by 16% of its total non-air travel emissions. Specific CO2 emissions savings included:

• 25 metric tons saved by facilitating the sharing of rooms by participants
• 3.2 metric tons and 56,357 gallons of water saved through participation in the hotel’s towel and sheet reuse program
• 0.5 metric tons saved by providing a shuttle for airport and event transfers rather than travel by individual taxicabs
• 0.5 metric tons saved by eliminating bottled water and providing tap water only

“Companies who are committed to sustainability and minimizing their environmental footprint must first understand where their material impact can be made,” said Craig Ebert of ICF International. “For companies in the knowledge economy, often that material impact is in their electricity use, business travel and corporate events. We applaud McAfee for its industry leadership in corporate sustainability by conducting this in-depth measurement project, taking steps to reduce and offset the environmental impact and being transparent in sharing the results with others for the common good.”

Among the overall findings of the formal measurement project of the remaining environmental impact:

• The carbon footprint of the overall event was approximately 1,856 metric tons of CO2, or 1.03 metric tons of CO2 per event attendee
• 90% of the event’s carbon footprint resulted from air travel to and from the event
• Excluding air travel, of the remaining 10% of the event’s carbon footprint, the breakdown was as follows: food (35%), hotel rooms (33%), amenities (19%), facility use of hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) (5%), solid waste (4%) and the event’s conference center (3%)

MacAfee used carbon offsets to compensate for the travel element, contributing to a reforestation project in Louisiana.

Ironically, James Governor’s Greenmonk is holding an Energy Camp unconference next week - in Las Vegas.

Business travel among software companies is a major contributor to CO2 emissions. One of the ways to overcome this is to organize virtual events. Like the one I recently ‘attended’ along with more than 2,000 SAP employees. Savings amounted to 724,000 km in travel alone for the three day event.