Even in the midst of an economic downturn, green initiatives are still relevant and have become, in some cases, legally binding. Increasingly, both in the public sector and further afield, organisations are exploring green options, making them an integral part of the agenda. With the pressure to ‘go green’ coming to the fore, what changes can we make to reduce our environmental impact and what solutions are already in place to help us achieve this?
The Climate Change Bill became law late last year and is the world’s first long term legally binding framework to tackle the issue of climate change. Under this law, green house gas emission reductions of at least 80 per cent must be made by 2050. Reductions of at least 26 per cent have to be made by 2020.
Closer to home, businesses are now also affected by the Carbon Reduction Commitment. Starting in April 2010, organisations will begin to calculate their emissions responsibility, purchase allowances based on expected emissions and monitor energy use. Although these commitments are aimed at UK businesses as a whole, the public sector is also affected by the Greening Government ICT strategy. While its aims focus on achieving carbon neutrality across central government ICT systems, it also seeks to reduce occupancy and minimise travel via tele and videoconferencing as a means to reduce carbon footprint.
The public sector is facing pressure in all these areas to make sustainable choices and reduce its carbon footprint. Therefore when it came to organising a series of conferences for headteachers, college principals and senior education managers, we needed to address our green commitments.
The objective of the conference was to create a platform for strategic communication with government about the reforms to 14-19 education and the new requirement on all young people to participate in education or training until their 18th birthday. The events gave an overview of the reforms and also helped schools and colleges prepare for the second year of Diploma teaching. We needed to offer delegates the opportunity to communicate directly with ministers and with each other about the reforms as well as selecting a sustainable option with a low carbon footprint.
Communicating education reform
Education and training in the UK are currently undergoing changes to encourage young people to obtain a broader range of work place competencies and soft skills that complement theoretical and applied learning skills. This will ensure that every young person has a high-quality skill set that will help them achieve their potential and progress to further and higher education and employment.
The reforms themselves are broad and include raising the age at which young people will leave education or training to 18 as well as introducing a new set of qualifications. With some of these changes already underway, the conference was an opportunity to highlight change and demonstrate successes already achieved.
We worked with sustainable event specialists The Live Group plc to meet our environmental needs plus deliver proven audience engagement and interaction between delegates and guest speakers. Using its sustainable communication solution GreenGageLive, we could hold five conferences over five days in Birmingham, Bristol, London, Manchester and Newcastle; each city ‘hub’ was then linked via videoconferencing to a further two regional locations. This setup meant we were able to offer 15 location choices to delegates.
Using GreenGageLive, delegates could attend the event at their closest location, cutting down on travel and reducing the carbon emissions generated by large groups of people convening in one central location.
The Live Group’s video service was also in action filming at Valley School and North Nottinghamshire FE College in Worksop to provide an interactive, online video for viewers to read or watch more about the Diploma agenda. This enabled delegates to see first hand best practice examples of the reforms and how they are impacting on students and education professionals.
Promoting interaction
Providing a sustainable conference was an important factor in the creation of the event. However, we didn’t want remote to mean removed, so we also employed technology to encourage interaction. Using audience engagement tools allowed delegates to maximise the benefits of virtually meeting with education ministers by opening up communication.
As part of the GreenGageLive solution, LiveInteractive digital audience engagement tablets at each delegate table powered question asking on the new education reforms. Opinions or questions were typed directly onto the tablets and put to education ministers at the central venue. Audience engagement has the added benefit of helping to address complex issues, gather richer data and share ideas in conference settings. With an accessible communication medium available to each delegate, two-way dialogue is encouraged and gathering feedback is simpler. Direct feedback gathered in real time from delegates is also very useful for shaping content on the day and tailoring the event accordingly. Credit card sized voting palmlets were also used by delegates in conjunction to test perceptions to provide us with valuable, opinion forming data post event.
Delegates were also able to communicate directly with ministers via videoconferencing and share peer-to-peer best practice with those who have already participated in the first wave of diplomas which started in September 2008. On the final day in London, Iain Wright MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for 14-19 Reform and Apprenticeships, answered questions from delegates in London, Ashford and Oxford on the Diploma and wider reforms to 14-19 education. Audience engagement tools were used by delegates to ask questions irrespective of their location and capture opinions to feed back into government.
After the event, all delegate feedback was stored and split into data sets as an electronic report, eliminating the need to transcribe notes or decipher whiteboards. We now have a post event document from which to extract information for further use. Not only is this service valuable as a point of reference, but it is also ‘paperless’, reducing the amount of overall waste generated by the event.
Pioneering change
Communicating education reforms to headteachers and senior education managers is essential to get everyone up to speed at an implementation level. By using a unique event communication solution we not only made attending the event easier, we also encouraged two-way dialogue between delegates, ministers and senior government officials.
In the case of this multimedia conference, we were able to select the sustainable option without limiting the possibilities for interaction and communication. This meant that not only were we responding to the green agenda, we were also able to offer delegates direct communication with government ministers giving them instant, valuable feedback on the 14-19 education reforms.
The benefits of sustainable communication systems
- GreenGageLive enables remote delegate attendance at events plus encourages interaction
- Responds to the green agenda by reducing carbon emissions
- Eliminates the need for lengthy travel and overnight stays by remote event attendance
- Improves delegate work/life balance
- Gives delegates more choice in how they wish to participate in live events
- Extends the lifespan of an event by shaping agendas beforehand and driving interaction after the event
For more information
www.dcsf.gov.uk
www.greengagelive.com
