September 24, 2008

Quiroz on Green Conventions



I was very impressed to see Oracle Open World embrace environmentalism and design activities and alter their usage of materials and packing to help reduce our overall carbon footprint. Also, they catered to an impressive variety of dietary needs. We identified, Vegetarian, Lacto-Vegetarian, Vegan, Halla, Indian, Gluten-free, Low sodium, Lactose intolerant and Kosher. All of the food was packaged in recyclable or compostable materials and there were special recepticals to separate the waste. Oracle claims to be saving tons of waste that won't go to land fills. Also, they had stations where you can plug your laptop into a generator that is powered by stationary bike to recharge your laptop or cell phone. They claimed 15 minutes of pedaling should generate enough power to run a laptop for an hour.

Also, paper waste was addressed by reducing the size of the conference guide and encouraging attendees to use digital documents as much as possible.


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