“E.T calls Barna”
It’s that time of year again, where all the leaders, innovators within the mobile companies from all around the world gather in Barcelona for the Mobile World Congress 2018.
Since GSMA announced that Barcelona had been selected as the Mobile World Capital from 2012 to 2018, representatives from all the major companies have been flocking to Barcelona. More than 200 hundred companies from across the globe have been flocking will attend the prestigious Mobile World Congress and it is estimated that over 100,000 attendees will be at the congress for the week long exhibition this year.
The GSMA Mobile World Congress is a combination of the world’s largest exhibition for the mobile industry and a conference featuring prominent executives representing mobile operators, device manufacturers, technology providers, vendors and content owners from across the world. The event, initially named as GSM World Congress and later renamed as the 3GSM World Congress, is still often referred to as 3GSM or 3GSM World.
The GSMA goes green, the eco-friendly and sustainable side of the Congress
In keeping with Be Local Tours’ dedication to sustainability we focus on the green side of the Congress. We believe technology can be a powerful tool to help the environment.
The GSMA has a very interesting Environmental Program is committed to reduce the environmental impact of the fair. The Mobile World Congress has made big efforts to reduce waste in printed materials, re-use and recycle materials and promote green technology.
Food outlets offer recycled and compostable service items, all event publications are presented on recycled paper, and event bags and badge lanyards are made from recycled plastic bottles.
They also have a Carbon Neutrality Programme, based among other things on ” the preservation of the environment by reducing emissions and waste“, the education of their attendees “to encourage them to be green“. Just like we do, but in a muuuuch bigger scale, of course.
Another thing we found out is that since 2011 Barcelona has held the Biosphere responsible tourism certificate, in line with the international criteria of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council. Awesome!
We were pretty impressed by the 18,000 solar panels of the Photovoltaic roof of Fira Gran Via, the location of the Congress. It consists of more than 18,000 solar panels and can generate almost 5 Gwh of renewable energy each year (which is a lot).
The Green Electronics Council
We particularly like one of the attendees at the Congress as Mobile world Congress Tours & Experience Partners, the Green Electronics Council (GEC).
It is a mission-driven global non-profit organization that collaborates to achieve a world in which only sustainable IT products are designed, manufactured, and purchased.
GEC’s flagship program is EPEAT, the leading global ecolabel for ICT products. EPEAT provides manufacturers sustainable product design criteria and, through the online EPEAT Registry, provides institutional purchasers access to a wide selection of high-performance, sustainable and cost-competitive IT products. GEC also engages in various activities to help advance the global community’s understanding and adoption of sustainable-electronics practices.
Take a look at their website here!
