Does anyone have any suggestions for more environmentally friendly lanyards or badges for conferences held over more than one day? I see that it’s possible to purchase the fabric part of the lanyard in bamboo or a recycled material, but the wallets that you put the printed name label in all seem to be PVC. The only other idea I could think of was printing multiple sticky labels for each delegate, but I’m not sure how practical this would be.
Search
This is a great question! I think that the plastic badges being used at the AIC conferences are recyclable... but I wonder if there was some way that we could have a universal badge- so one badge that could be used for all conferences - and maybe just add a sticker for that particular conference? Or a different lanyard depending on the conference (great that there are bamboo options!) Saves a lot of material and expenses! Would take some coordination- but indeed I always feel bad about what I am supposed to do with my name tag at the end of a conference.
Hey there! At CICS in Cologne we are organising a conference and we are trying to be the most sustainable we can. One of the things we thought of was to reduce the printing i.e. the paper use. Badges do not have to be covered in plastic (!), consider thicker paper or cardboard for the printing. A second option: We found the following design on Pinterest. The idea is to have the booklet with all infos together with the name-badge. This way you will have the badges and the booklet, as well as any other infos in ONE little passport-size booklet.
The lanyards could be made of a textile, maybe thick hemp threads?
On an individual level, one can bring a reusable (fabric) lanyard & plastic "wallet" to the conference and reuse it every time. Only the paper printout would have to be recycled every time. Another option is to give back the lanyard at the end of the conference. That is what I did 2 weeks ago at the CAC conference because I knew that they had a stack of leftovers that will be used next year. As for the organizers of a conference, I would recommend asking for the lanyards back at the end to be reused the next year. Some might be damaged and unusable, but most should still be in good condition, especially if conference goers are informed from the beginning that their lanyards will be reused.