Key details of the event:

* 71st Union Sociale pour l’Habitat Conference • 28-30 September 2010 • The largest travelling conference in France

* 4,000 attendees (members of social housing organisations, Union federations and subsidiaries)

o 1,100 national and regional guests o 200 exhibitors (2,000 building industry employees staffing the exhibition) o 100 journalists o 5,000 local and national visitors o 7,500 overnights in Strasbourg

Interview with Chantal Testa, head of conference coordination, Union Sociale pour l’Habitat and Dan-Antoine Blanc-Shapira, Sensation agency

Why Strasbourg?

There are really only 6 or 7 cities with the capacity to host our conference, which calls for 2,500 hotel rooms. That said, the last time the housing conference was held in Strasbourg dates back to 1992! We have worked very closely with Cathy Spielmann and her teams over the last four or five years to bring the conference back to the capital of Europe. The choice of destination is based first and foremost on practical considerations – hotel capacity, quality of the venue – because this is a professional and political conference, where a lot of hard work gets done, and the sessions are very well attended. That doesn’t mean that the charm of the city and its reputation for fine food counted for nothing, though: on the contrary, they are big advantages for the gala dinners organised by our exhibition and institutional partners. The conference is associated with an exhibition of around 200 stands covering the “the building world”, products and services. And let’s not forget another major advantage Strasbourg has on its side, one that counted a lot with us: the city’s environment-friendly approach, perhaps inevitable given its close proximity to Germany.

You were awarded the Kréa prize for most environmentally responsible conference for Toulouse 2009; will Strasbourg be even greener?

There is no magic recipe for a green conference; it’s a gradual process that began in Toulouse in 2009 and is being taken further in Strasbourg. We have a list of 24 action points, with an initial inventory, objectives for improvement, and a series of final measures. Take the carpeting, for example. We recycled all the carpeting in 2009, but the most important thing we did was reducing the carpeted area from 30,000m² to 23,000m², and we plan to do even better this year. We encourage online registration with preferential rates: from a total of 30% of conference registrations online last year, we are aiming for 50% for Strasbourg this year. Strasbourg offers one big advantage that will reduce the conference’s carbon footprint: its high-speed rail access, cycling-friendly culture and its tram system: the trip from the station to the exhibition centre takes just 12 minutes, delivering visitors right to the gates of the site. We will also be promoting car-pooling, with VIP parking reserved for car-poolers only. The conference will occupy all the exhibition centre’s conference halls (halls 20, 21, Pavilion K), with a plenary session for 2,000 delegates to be held at Rhenus Sport, the indoor arena where Barack Obama addressed a crowd of 3,000 young people in April this year. The Contades room at the conference centre will host the dinners organised by partners. Having both conference and exhibition centre so close together on a single site, and so close to the city centre, hotels and railway station, is a real green bonus!

How do you organise your collaboration?

We work on all the aspects in total synergy with Strasbourg Events, naturally, but also with the City of Strasbourg, the Tourist Office… teams already well versed in environmental issues. It’s a big advantage, as we all move forward together. When we put out requests for proposals, as we are required to do, we try as far as possible to rely on local and regional suppliers.

At the same time, we pursue environmental responsibility without upping our budget; the biggest cost is in time spent putting together solutions. We are a testing ground. Because the Union Sociale pour l’Habitat Conference is also highly symbolic in scope, it is important for us to work to a certain set of ethics.

Ethics that are in keeping with the corporate social responsibility to which Strasbourg Events is committed.

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