News
- RE’13 presentation slides now available from the Downloads page.
Key Dates in 2013
- July 15: Doctoral Symposium
- July 15-16: Workshops & Tutorials
- July 17-19: Main Conference
Sustainability @ RE’13
Growing up means quite a few things. First, while we gain some freedom, it also means that we need to take responsibility for our own actions. Second, as we start to think about aging, we also start to think about what we need to do to enjoy a long and healthy future.
Sustainability was the conference theme for RE’08. Now that the RE conference is 21, and to ensure we reach 40, we are taking a closer look at how we can take responsibility for our conference and its impact going forward. To this end, we have appointed a designated stakeholder to look at ways to make the RE conference “sustainable”.
In the context of the RE conference, we define sustainability as finding a good balance between technically sound and inspiring research and practice, a socially enjoyable community gathering, and an environmentally sustainable event with a positive spirit.
To support this objective, we have initiated a number of actions for RE’13:
- Extended travel information with hostels, public transport, and eco-tourism as well as a hint to flight emission compensation
- Totally electronic conference proceedings (so no adding to that heavy baggage with more paper on the way home).
- Electronic copies of sample papers from our publisher supporters.
- A sponsor for a conference giveaway that transports the message (surprise).
- New ways of advertising that involve less shipping and material.
- A special way of quickly summarizing conference news online.
- Extended feedback from participants (in the spirit of RE4RE).
- New ways of interacting with the community by the Interactive RE initiative.
We will keep you posted on this page as the actions evolve in the lead up to and during the conference itself. We also plan to evaluate what we do and what we achieve, and we will notify you on that later on. Meanwhile, if you have any ideas on other things we can and should be doing to promote Sustainability @ RE’13, please do not hesitate to contact the Sustainability Chair.
Brazil in general, for example, with their new sustainability party and PUC Rio in specific, with their environmental agenda, have established environmental sustainability as major goal Ð let’s join forces!
Simple choices we recommend to you (not only at RE’13):
- Eat local (you will want to try the local food anyways);
- Walk, or use public transport (whenever possible);
- Use a refillable water bottle and a reusable coffee cup.
Further inspiration and information:
- The "Story of Change"
- The movie "Trashed"
Comments from the Sustainability Chair:
- Why am I doing this? Environmental sustainability is my personal passion. I love nature and I want to raise children on this planet who I can still guide through the Alps and show all the wonders of nature.
- How am I doing this? I decided to explicitly integrate sustainability into my research agenda to find out how we, as software engineers, can contribute to making this world a little better and greener. At the same time, I try to improve my own everyday life and pass the message on to others.
