Green at MySQL Connect

What Oracle Is Doing

These are some highlights of what we’ve been able to achieve over several years. You can read more about our progress in our Sustainable Event Report. We know we still have a lot of work to do and look forward to updating you on our progress.

Oracle is also working to extend sustainability to all of our events globally:

• Oracle OpenWorld and JavaOne events in Asia and Latin America have dedicated green initiatives.
• In the last 12 months, more than 110 Oracle event planners worldwide have been actively reducing the environmental impact of more than 1,400 of our smaller events.

What You Can Do

Although we’re working hard to make more sustainable choices, it’s your help that will continue to help us improve our success rates.

Consider these ten ways you can reduce your personal conference footprint.

1. Reuse a drink container. Every time you use and reuse your own bottle or cup you help conserve by avoiding disposable containers. Need a reusable container? Stop by and pick one up at the Oracle or JavaOne stores.
2. Get the conference mobile application. In 2007 Oracle used over 100 tons of paper on site—equivalent to the weight of 50 cars—for conference guides, handouts, and the like. Since then we’ve cut back to a mere 16 tons by greatly reducing what gets printed, and making most everything available online. Take advantage of the conference mobile app and help us continue to reduce paper usage at the conferences.
3. Be a green hotel guest. Refusing daily laundry service in your hotel room conserves an estimated 14 gallons of water per washing avoided. So hang up your towels and take a pass on changing your bed linens. And, don’t forget to turn off the lights, air conditioning, and television when you leave your room.
4. Walk, don’t ride. Forty-four percent of Oracle conference hotels are within walking distance of the conferences. By choosing to walk instead of take the bus you’re helping Oracle reduce shuttle miles traveled by 24,000 since 2007, and reducing carbon emissions by 39 metric tons.
5. Use a pedi-cab if you don’t feel like walking. People-powered pedi-cabs are a great way to get where you need to be without the carbon footprint of a taxi.
6. Find other low-impact ways to get around San Francisco. Every trip to and from the airport on BART prevents 21 pounds of emissions from spewing into the atmosphere.
7. Sort what’s left of your lunch. Your lunch box is compostable, but your beverage container and snack packages may not be. So bring your lunch box to a recycling station and talk to one of our Green Angels about what gets sorted into which bin.
8. Don’t want to take conference materials like your backpack, notebook, or pen home? Bring them back to the Registration area so we can donate them to a deserving local non-profit organization, RAFT, the Resource Area for Teachers.
9. Recycle your name badge. Look for our badge drop-off bins as you leave.
10. Offset your carbon footprint. Oracle estimates each event attendee produces approximately 1,800 lbs of carbon emissions, primarily through air travel, but also through hotel stays, venue power consumption, and food and ground transportation. If you were to capture that, it would fill over 78,000 balloons. Oracle has included an option for you to purchase an offset as you go through the registration process. The offset fee supports projects administered through Terra Pass.

While Oracle operates our own business according to environmental best practices, we also use our own sustainability products, achieving significant benefits to our own bottom line. Oracle's greatest positive impact is through the delivery of practical, concrete solutions that help our customers with their own sustainability initiatives.