`Green' conference on net will cut emissions

Environment97, the world's first such conference to be held exclusively on the Internet, is open for registrations. John Duffy, Environment97's marketing manager said: `It's ironic that environmental conferences often have a significant impact on the environment.

`Because Environment97 will not actually take place in the flesh, it will have a lower environmental impact - and we will prove it. By carrying out a life-cycle assessment, we will be able to compare the cyber-conference with a flesh-conference. At the end of Environment97, we'll know how many kg of CO2 we have saved by running Environment97 on the Internet.'

The IChemE believes that one of the keys to enabling industry to improve its environmental performance is sharing information.

So, the 200-plus papers (given by the likes of David Bellamy and Sir John Houghton, Chairman of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution) will be freely available world-wide. Its URL is http://www.environment97.org