Why Virtual?

In the spirit of collaboration, commitment to the environment, and continued safety during COVID-19, the GCSE 2022 Annual Conference will be held virtually in an online format that allows participants from across the globe to participate in real time without needing to travel.

Our goal to offer the greatest level of access and inclusion to all who wish to attend; with sessions spread over four days and accessible at minimal cost through a simple internet link, we aim to achieve a broad array of participation while reducing health risks and minimizing environmental impact. We also strive to promote equity and inclusion throughout our conference and organization; please see GCSE’s oath to be anti-racist.

GCSE 2022 Annual Conference - A Virtual Event

GCSE has developed a tool that will allow the organization to track over time the emissions impact from its conferences. Of particular interest is to understand the avoided emissions when GCSE holds its conferences and events virtually. 

For the GCSE 2022 Annual Conference, based on registrations through June 15, 2022 by GCSE holding the conference virtually, 275 tons of CO2 equivalent emissions will be avoided: 228 tons will be from avoiding travel to the conference (mostly air), 3 tons from avoiding local transportation, 31 tons from avoiding hotel emissions, 13 tons from avoiding venue missions all of which will be offset by 0.13 tons produced by the VC hosts (such as servers). More than 2.3 million miles will not be flown and almost 50,000 miles of local transportation will not be used. 

GCSE will engage this tool to track emissions on an annual basis and to understand the aggregated history of emissions over time.