Sustainability
Sustainability for events involves taking proactive steps to preserve our natural environment, foster a healthy and inclusive society, and support a thriving economy.
The EASL Congress 2024 has implemented various initiatives to make its congress more sustainable, with the following objectives in mind:
- Reducing the consumption of resources, giving preference to local resources when available, and encouraging reuse and recycling practices whenever feasible.
- Promoting sustainable practices and eco-friendly behaviours among all stakeholders involved in preparing the congress.
- Collaborating with suppliers, partners, and businesses that align with the congress’s sustainability goals, aiming for environmental, social, and economic benefits.
- Leaving a lasting sustainable legacy for the city of Milan.
Here’s an overview of some of the initiatives implemented for the congress (this list is not exhaustive):
We include criteria related to Corporate Social Responsibility in our procurement process, emphasising the principles and practices of sustainable development in business operations.
We encourage delegates and faculty to take the most sustainable approach to traveling to Milan, prioritising options to travel by train where possible. For those traveling by plane, we have introduced a voluntary policy for compensating the carbon footprint of travel. Additionally, we will provide the option to our delegates to purchase public transport tickets at the Congress venue, to move around the host city in the most ecofriendly way.
Our providers’ sustainability policies are evaluated and chosen on the basis of certification with the Italian Ecolabel, thereby supporting local initiatives and generating positive economic impacts.
We prioritise eco-certified accommodation for our delegates, and provide these options in alignment with our accommodation provider bnetwork’s latest eco-conscious initiatives.
We reduce the ecological footprint of our congress by: implementing energy-efficiency policies in collaboration with the Mico Milan venue; limiting printed materials and favouring digital communication; reducing single-use carpet where possible; recycling delegate badges at the end of the congress; limiting single-use plastics giveaways; reusing items in the Community Hub.
We commit to diversity, equality and inclusion, promoting respect for individuals of diverse ethnicities, genders, religion, sexual orientation or opinions. Our programme has been designed keeping these principles in mind.
We minimise food waste, making use of the catering points at the venue and sending excess food to the Banco Alimentario in Milan for further redistribution.
We prioritise accessibility to education for all through fellowships, training programmes, digital access options, reduced fees and membership benefits for resource-limited economies, and accessibility to the myEASL community. We additionally provide on-demand access to our scientific programme sessions on EASL Campus.
We offer clean water through water refill stations and provide reusable bottles for EASL Members at the Community Hub. We promote public clean water access.
EASL Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct
- The European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL) is strongly committed to supporting and promoting diversity and inclusiveness within its community, within the EASL staff, and events invited Faculty.
- EASL is dedicated to organising, hosting and facilitating events at which everyone can participate in an inclusive, respectful, and safe environment. EASL events are guided by the highest ethical and professional standards, and all participants are expected to behave with integrity and respect towards all other participants attending or involved with any EASL event or activity.
- At EASL events and related virtual environments, it is our top priority to ensure a safe, healthy, discrimination-free atmosphere that openly accepts all individuals regardless of age, ethnicity, race, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression or any other group identity.
The Milano Convention Centre - MiCo
The Milano Convention Centre is a spectacular conference venue, located in the city centre, within the CityLife district.
For over 25 years it has been a leader in Italy, and it is internationally known in its industry.
It is a venue renowned for its distinctive design and ambience, its high-quality services, its continually updated technological standards, its commitment to sustainability and its ongoing focus on providing an unrivalled service and experience.
MiCo is managed by Fiera Milano Congressi Spa (FMC), which is part of Fiera Milano Group.
MiCo Award
Allianz MiCo is a Gold Healthy Venue. The Healthy Venue Award forms part of World Obesity’s Action Initiative, a mechanism for stimulating action to help reduce obesity across a wide range of industries, in particular those that are not usually involved with health.
As a Healthy Venue it is committed to…
- Providing healthy food options across all of menus for you to choose from
- Providing water around the venue, free of charge, for delegates
- Helping design meetings to promote less sedentary behaviour
- Supporting incorporating physical activity into your program
- Promoting active travel to and from the venue
LEED V4 O+M CERTIFICATION
MiCo has fulfilled the requirements of the Leed Green Building Rating System Certification established by the US Green Building Council and verified by green business certification.
It calls for the implementation of sustainable practices that improve performance, increase efficiency and reduce environmental impact in existing buildings through appropriate operations and maintenance The backbone of the rating system is a set of pre-requisites based on performance measured against real data.
The pre-requisites concern:
- Performance related to transport systems used to and from the facility
- Water performance
- Energy performance
- Waste performance
- Indoor environmental quality performance
Since January 2020 the company that manages MiCo, Fiera Milano Congressi Spa, uses only renewable sources thanks to the agreement with A2A.
