Earth Day is tomorrow - AMPA does its part, will you?

The March 28th Earth Hour event saw households worldwide go lights off for an hour (between 8:30 – 9:30 p.m.). This year, Edmonton’s energy consumption dropped 5.2 percent, while Calgary’s 1 percent dip is nothing to brag about, but certainly not as embarrassing as 2008’s 3.6 percent rise in consumption.

Since tomorrow is Earth Day, AMPA thought we should reflect on our eco-efforts.

It’s as simple as taking baby steps to reduce our carbon footprint—we don’t turn on the office lights (having a window office helps), turn off power bars at the end of the day (who needs phantom power?), group mailings or eliminate altogether where possible (we have awesome friends/mail mules), run errands all at once (operative word: run).

For the 2009 Alberta Magazines Conference March 19 & 20th, we greened up by:- making our registration packs with green products. The reusable cloth bags were made from recycled pop bottles and designed to minimize the use of inks for printing.


The notebooks were made of recycled paper.


The lanyards were made of bamboo and we asked for its return from attendees.



- Precycling by asking sponsors to limit their paper materials in the registration packs.

- We used online registration and almost all correspondence via email, such as: receipts, invoices and registration confirmations.

Whatever it is that you do, remember that it can be as simple as bringing your thermos to a coffee shop or using fewer squares of toilet paper--every little bit helps.

Happy Earth Day!