Sustainability Statement

Our goal is to bring awareness to and take steps to mitigate the environmental impact of PyCon. The PyCon Sustainability Working Group acknowledges the serious challenge of confronting global climate change and the importance of bringing the Python community’s actions in line with a more sustainable future. We believe that by empowering Python community members to take realistic measures to address climate change, we can not only create a more environmentally-friendly society but also make the Python community stronger.

Objectives

Our efforts revolve around two key areas and our long term objectives are:

1. Awareness
   • Quantify the environmental impact of PyCon
   • Relate the environmental effects of PyCon to the larger picture of addressing global climate change
   • Inform attendees of measures they can take to mitigate negative externalities
   • Provide attendees information on follow-up steps for local Python communities
2. Actions. Specific actions that the committee will pursue include but are not limited to:
   • Organize buses and alternative forms of travel to PyCon
   • Encourage ride-sharing and public transportation at PyCon
   • Work with local vendors and the convention center to assure steps are taken to compost all food waste
   • Reduce single-use plastics at PyCon
   • Promote the use of sustainable vendors and facilities
   • Bring additional sustainability-related programming talks to PyCon

Practice Sustainability

These are practical steps you can take to make PyCon more sustainable (these will also reduce your footprint in your life outside PyCon!):

• Take buses, trains, or shared vehicles to PyCon
• Reduce meat consumption
• Carpool or take public transit at the conference
• Avoid single-use silverware and bottles
• Favor vendors and companies who have implemented sustainability measures
• Encourage Python community members to reduce the entire community’s impact

PyCon 2020 Progress

Concrete steps have already been taken toward making PyCon 2020 more sustainable. The host venue of PyCon 2020, the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, is Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-certified Platinum, the highest level on the nation-wide scale for energy-efficiency in buildings. In addition, PyCon has worked with the venue to ensure there will be ample vegetarian meals available for all conference attendees.

For more information please email: pycon-sustainability@python.org