Towards a Carbon-neutral Assembly…   As an Assembly, we've started out on a bit of a journey, which we hope will end in the event becoming carbon-neutral in its impact.   As everyone knows, this is a HUGE subject!  Some actions in reducing the carbon footprint of an event are only eye-catching symbols - but symbols can be very important.  Other actions are very significant, but not really very interesting to most people.  Some things are under our direct control, while others are not. And there are lots of differing opinions, which we respect.  We're trying to address all these issues in our actions.   We're not pretending that we know the right way to our goal, but what we have done is to consider carefully the biblical mandate for creation care, and in the light of that, planned what we can do this year, and what we can achieve in the coming years.  We're grateful for advice and insights from our friends at A Rocha and Climate Stewards.   For this year, we're doing the following things: maximising the use of phone conferencing in our planning, to reduce travel working to reduce paper use banning plastic carrier bags from the exhibition introducing free jute bags for delegates, made by Freeset in India, transported here by sea  providing the opportunity in the Assembly exhibition for every delegate to carbon-offset their travel encouraging delegates and staff to reduce car costs to a minimum through sharing using recyclable communion cups, and ensuring that they are recycled providing recycling points in the arena for paper and other recyclable materials asking local hotels to encourage delegates to change towels only when needed For Assemblies from 2011 onwards, as part of our venue decision-making process, we're asking venues to work with us to: maximise the use of power supplies from sustainable sources reduce the use of disposable products, in favour of reusable ones maximise the use of fairly-traded resources and services maximise the use of local foods ensure the best possible recycling facilities for the event Overall, we're considering working towards BS 8901, which is the new standard for sustainable event management, and is a fully-verifiable, independent assessment.   We do hope that you'll support us as we start out on the journey, and we'd welcome any comments and suggestions you may have.