The World Environment Day event, 2010, hosted by WESC, is proud to be the first event in Egypt to have its footprint calculated. A Carbon Footprint is the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions caused by an event, organization, or product. The emission of greenhouse gasses by human activity is accepted as being the cause of global warming, which threatens global biodiversity, ecosystems, and the livelihood of hundreds of millions of people.

WESC and its partners organizers have chosen to go a step further by offsetting the emissions from the event to make it the first CarbonZero event in Egypt. It thus joins a diverse group of international events, businesses, and organizations who have calculated their footprint, such as the 2010 FIFA World Cup and the United Nations, and those who have offset some of all of their carbon emissions, such as the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, Dell Computer, and many others.

The WED 2010 event has a carbon footprint of 27 tonnes of CO2 equivalent. The majority of this footprint is caused by transportation of people to and from the event. Although the event is being attended by more than three thousand people, yet it has a small footprint for an event of this size; mainly because it is held in an open area during daylight, and therefore there are no emissions for space air conditioning or lighting, as well as that, a majority of participants are travelling by bus, rather than by individual cars. These factors have contributed to reducing the amount of greenhouse gas emissions by the event.

Calculating a carbon footprint is the first step towards reducing emissions and their environmental impacts. By choosing to become CarbonZero, the organizers have helped support others in reducing their emissions by the same amount as the emissions from the WED 2010 event, therefore making the overall net emissions of the event equals to Zero. This is done by purchasing carbon credits to fund projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions in any part of the world. In this case, the organizers supported a project to improve the efficiency of stoves in Kenyan villages. This way the organizers not only helps reduce overall emissions of greenhouse gases, but also contributed to raising the standard of living for rural families by improving the air quality in their homes through more efficient stoves and reducing the labour required to gather fuel. The project is listed with the Gold Standard Foundation, one of the leading certifiers of projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and contribute to sustainable development.

The organizers hope that by footprinting the WED 2010 event and making it CarbonZero, will raise awareness about the impact of our everyday activities and about things that can be done to help reduce it. We hope this will inspire others to calculate and understand the impacts of their everyday activities as a step towards developing a sustainable society.