Should we carbon offset the 2025 FOSS4G Conference
We have a quote for carbon offset for the conference for NZ$6,775.98.
The text of the quote is below, from Carbon Click: https://www.carbonclick.com/
I have done the calculation with the assumptions where necessary.
The following assumptions were made:
- Electricity consumption: As I assume it will be hard to obtain more information from AUT, I assumed the electricity consumption of an average conference room is 95kWh/day, not knowing if heating/cooling was in place or other equipment used
- Waste: For an average conference I assumed there are 1.89kg of waste per attendee per day
- Flights: This is by far the largest item and I based it on the below numbers:
Any more exact number on the attendees from Australia would be great, as at the moment I assumed that quite a few would come from there.
In total I come up as per below:
We usually include a 20% buffer to cover for all the assumptions made.
The cost to offset the emissions comes to NZ$6,775.98. I have created a portfolio that includes projects from the United States, Indonesia (as we currently have no projects in Korea), and New Zealand to represent the home countries of most attendees.
Let's carbon offset the conference for a cost of approximately $6,700 NZD
proposal by Alex Leith Closed Wed 26 Nov 2025 1:00AM
What is the decision you need to make?
We agree to proceed with carbon offsets for the conference, which is what we committed to in our proposal. Note that we are anticipating something like an $80 k NZD surplus, roughly.
Why is this important?
This will offset the travel, food and power for the conference.
What are you asking people to do?
Support the LOC to spend money offsetting the conference.
Results
| Results | Option | Votes | % of votes cast | % of eligible voters | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
Agree | 2 | 100 | 25 |
|
| Abstain | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Disagree | 0 | 0 | 0 | ||
| Undecided | 6 | 75 |
|
2 of 8 votes cast (25% participation)
Dani Bramante
Wed 19 Nov 2025 1:26AM
Pending further discussion on the details
Jonah Sullivan Wed 19 Nov 2025 1:30AM
I think we should remove the accommodation and flights. These numbers are questionable estimates and might have already been offset by the users.
The remaining emissions will be trivial to fund.
Alex Leith Wed 19 Nov 2025 1:33AM
I think flights are the main source of emissions, so feel it should be included. I wouldn't mind removing accommodation, though.
I could get a better estimate of where people are from to the org, so the quote is more accurate.
Nick Forbes-Smith Wed 19 Nov 2025 1:47AM
It might be worth waiting until we have the final budget sorted. I would also like to look into how https://www.carbonclick.com/ actually spends the money. It would be nice to sponsor some sort of pacific/oceania based carbon offset program
Alex Leith Wed 19 Nov 2025 1:59AM
It might be worth waiting until we have the final budget sorted.
This is a good point, and I was thinking it too.
I would also like to look into how https://www.carbonclick.com/ actually spends the money.
They came recommended by locals, and did say they were investing in local places.
Alex Leith Wed 19 Nov 2025 1:59AM
Perhaps we should change this question to be "should we offset" and work out the detail later.
Dean Howell · Wed 19 Nov 2025 1:24AM
@Alex Leith what has been traditionally done with with other conferences?