Page 5 - BPW-UK - E-news - Edition 103 - June 2022

Report on the Green and Sustainable Workshop

at European Conference May 2022

Of the three workshops I attended during the European Conference in Reykjavik in
May 2022, the one on Green and Sustainability was the most interesting and rele-
vant to me.
It was led by Siiri Tiivits-Puttonen from Estonia and focused on the Estonian
project – Women Driving Green and Sustainable Development. She highlighted the
need to target groups of people, BPW groups, ourselves and our families and busi-
nesses. The group’s outcomes include educating women as stakeholders to become
advocates and educators of a green and sustainable world and to build up a network
of women to become speakers for sustainability.

Since September 2021, the European Working Group has been meeting monthly and
has built up a membership across many countries with the core team coming from
UK, Spain, Austria, Finland, Estonia, Turkey and USA.

We heard of the pledges given by members of BPW Finland to promote their sus-
tainable development, including pledges such as providing their family with 1 vege-
tarian meal per week, to recycle more, to use public transport more often and many
more.
BPW UK members gave a presentation on their best practice of reusing, recycling
and reducing waste by using sustainable local shops where possible, reducing the
carbon footprint in the fresh fruit and vegetables we buy and encouraging each per-
son to start by taking a small step towards becoming greener.

th
BPW Spain introduced their campaign to introduce an 18 SDG, that of protecting
space and skies by reducing the amount of light pollution so we can see and appre-
ciate more of our night skies and increase our accessibility to seeing the stars and
planets in our solar system. I found this project fascinating and also interesting that
by cutting the amount of light pollution we would also reduce the amount of energy
used to create the light.

Going forward, the Working Group plans to expand their membership, continue with
their meetings and lectures and celebrate Earth Day annually with the celebration
for 2023 being planned for the UK.

Jacqui McLoughlin Green and Sustainable (bpw-europe.org)