Hi Brian, Toerless,
At 08:23 PM 23-09-2024, Brian E Carpenter wrote:
+1, and there's another reason why successful hybrid meetings are a
win: it's an important contribution to sustainability. A 1000-person
meeting with 500 remote participants approximately halves the carbon
cost, compared to a 1000-person traditional meeting. Even if it
replaces a 750-person traditional meeting, it's a double win: 33%
less carbon and 33% more participants.
We can even check those numbers, sort of.
Brisbane got 687 on-site, 742 remote, in an era when total
participation is ~1500.
Adelaide got 1431 on-site, 0 remote**, in an era when total
participation was ~2300. We could scale that down to 933 on-site
today (1432*1500/2300). So that suggests that the hybrid format for
Brisbane saved ~250 flights.
Of course the impact for each destination will be different. But if
the numbers for a meeting in China worked out similar to Brisbane,
where's the problem?
** I guess remote audio was available, but not remote interaction.
Andy provided some useful information at
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/msg/ietf/jZ08A3b0oQOq25NUBbG27pA9d5M/
A simplified explanation for the increase in remote attendees is
because of a change in policy in or around 2017. Nowadays, meetings
are a mix of in-person and remote attendees. Toerless mentioned that
the mix is not a problem for his working group.
I don't remember seeing significant discussion about the
participation angle. It's good to have people submitting
I-Ds. People would have to discuss/review those I-Ds or else "this
document represents the consensus of the IETF community" would be
somewhat fictional. That work could also be outsourced to the
directorates. However, there are some disadvantages to such a model.
Another angle is the time to get from I-D adoption to "approved for
publication. I am not enthusiastic about spending four or five years
to push an I-D through the process.
According to IETF figures, the air travel emissions for a meeting in
the U.K was 3,508 metric tons of CO2 while the air travel emissions
for a meeting in Thailand was 5,328. The reduction in carbon
footprint is not listed as an objective in BCP 226. Such an
objective might be perceived as a push for less meetings in Asia.
Regards,
S. Moonesamy
