Face-to-face events are highly valued for their ability to foster personal connections, enhance creativity and improve communication. There are a number of reasons why face-to face meetings are important.

Video Fatigue:The term ‘Zoom Fatigue’ has been coined to describe the exhaustion associated with online meetings. Face-to-face meetings alleviate the intense eye contact, self-viewing, limited mobility, and the extra energy spent on interpreting social cues that contribute to this fatigue.

Creative Thinking: In-person meetings foster creativity. While remote working has necessitated innovation, the opportunity for teams to physically gather and brainstorm is unmatched. Mind mapping sessions and group discussions are more effective in person, allowing even the quieter team members to contribute.

Employee Wellbeing:Face-to-face training sessions have a unique impact on employee wellbeing. The energy created by bringing employees together in a physical space cannot be replicated online, enhancing engagement and connection.

Building Relationships:In-person meetings allow for stronger personal connections. Non-verbal cues such as facial expressions and body language are more easily detected, fostering trust and understanding.

Right Environment:Having the right environment for your meeting can increased productivity and engagement. Taking people out of their day-to-day work environment can increase morale, boost confidence and inspire creativity. Taking learning offsite can have a great positive impact. Use our tool to measure the business impact and ROI of your L&D programmes

Definitions:

• A day visitor is someone coming just for a conference, assumed to be 08:00 - 17:00.

• A Night Visitor is a 24 hr visitor (conference and staying the night).

• A B&B visitor is someone who just stays the night, assumed to be 17:00 - 08:00 the next day.

Emissions per visitor are calculated as follows:

Twelve months of hourly data for Scarman, Radcliffe, and the Slate along with the number and type of visitors for each (day, night and B&B) is used to apportion total energy consumption to visitors according to the assumed duration and times of visit. This energy consumption is then converted to carbon using published and site-specific factors calculated according to GHG protocol guidance and then averaged across the three sites to provide emissions for day, night, and B&B visitors visiting any of these sites.

*Emissions are provided on a “Market Basis” whereby carbon emissions associated with grid electricity consumed at any location are calculated on the basis of the carbon factor published by the University’s electricity supplier, for the duration of this analysis the University procured 100% REGO certified renewable energy and grid electricity emissions are zero. Emissions from heating are calculated using the University’s district heating factor of 0.256 kgCO2e/kWh.

The calculation includes carbon value for all food and an average energy usage for a day for heat, light, water, power, linen and laundry.

KgCO2 stands for kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent. It is a unit of measurement used to express the impact of greenhouse gases on global warming.

Thinking of it this way might help: 1kg of carbon dioxide CO2 would fill a large beach ball (with a diameter of slightly over 1m). This is the same amount of carbon dioxide produced by driving an average car 3 miles. Or the same as using half a litre of petrol in your car or making 16 cups of tea.

There are lots of steps you can take to reduce your carbon footprint. Below are a just a few tips:

• Choose a sustainable venue, like Warwick Conferences.

• Check if the venue has any green accreditations.

• Choose a venue that is easily accessible by public transport.

• Use a travel calculatorLink opens in a new window to help plan sustainable travel.

• Encourage attendees to travel by train, or car share, while those with electric cars could take advantage of electric charging points.

• Minimise paper by communicate digitally.

• Encourage attendees to travel by train, or car share, while those with electric cars could take advantage of electric charging points.

• Don’t use single use plastic, for example use bamboo lanyards instead of synthetic.

• Carbon rated green menu options.

• Residential guests – skip room clean.

• Have a shorter shower (4 minutes).

• Use measurement tools to track sustainability goals.

• Calculate your event emissions and plant treesLink opens in a new window to offset these emissions.

Let Warwick Conferences help -Whatever your bespoke event includes our team can assist in ensuring each element is optimised to be the best sustainable option for you whether that includes moving to a vegan menu or skipping room cleans whilst still keeping your experience to a high quality.

View our sustainability video that outlines our short and long term goals: Sustainability Roadmap | Warwick ConferencesLink opens in a new window

Visit our sustainability webpage: Sustainable and ethical | Warwick Conferences