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IEA-Africa Community Sustainability Guidelines

The United Nations has identified 17 sustainable development goals. Institute of Executive Assistants-Africa Community, strives to align the activities of our association with these goals whenever possible. We understand that this requires a behavioral change, and that some areas will be easy to address and change, whereas others will take time and creativity to achieve. IEA-Africa, as a members’ organization, has most notably to take responsibility for our Institute’s impact on the climate. The planet is our home and we all share the responsibility to preserve it for the next generations. Since we are an organization that arranges many events for our members, both globally, nationally and regionally, we will proactively work on minimizing any negative climate impact by adhering to an environmental mindset in all our processes.

Communication

We regularly communicate on the progress of IEA-Africa’s sustainability efforts, especially related to our Training Days and Annual Advisory Board Meetings and Annual Conferences We highlight and encourage sustainable initiatives by our national groups and share best practices. We strive to provide quality education and promotion of long-life learning opportunities

Goals

IEA-Africa has chosen 4 areas as the most important ones to address, in order to minimize our negative environmental footprint in international as well as national events:
  • To reduce our carbon emissions
  • To reduce our paper consumption
  • To offer food that is ecological and locally produced
  • To reduce our plastic waste.

Guiding Principles

Travel:
  • We encourage our members to travel in a climate-friendly way whenever possible.
  • We offer webinars and promote digital solutions for meetings.
Print-outs:
  • We aim to be digital and only take prints when necessary.
  • When we need to print we print on both sides of the paper.
Food:
  • We offer, when possible, food that is ecological and locally produced.
  • We offer a higher share of plant-based (vegetarian and/or vegan) produce alternatives
  • We aim to reduce food waste and chose suppliers and conference venues that recycle waste.
Plastic:
  • We aim to reduce our plastic consumption and waste.
Purchases:
  • We are conscious of the products we buy and brand as IEA-Africa
Suppliers & partners:
  • We aim to only partner with organizations that work in a sustainable manner.
  • We challenge our current partners to take a greater responsibility for their climate impact.
 
**IEA-Africa Community aims to bring awareness, inspire and motivate all of our members and partners and to act as a role model in contributing to a sustainable world. **