Sustainability in Action at the 2025 NSS Conference

Hosting a sustainable conference can be a challenging task for event organizers. At large venues such as universities and conference centers, many of the services - such as catering and waste disposal - are only available through contractors who do not offer sustainable options.

For our 2025 Annual Conference, NSS evaluated a number of options to supplement the services offered at the University of Notre Dame. Below are the services we selected, and after the conference, NSS will report on their success and impact.

Local catering and food selections

All vegetarian food provided by local caterers: ThreeLeaf (Notre Dame's caterer) and South Bend Social Catering.

Zero plastic

All servingware will be made of compostable materials.

Food waste diversion services

ThreeLeaf participates in Notre Dame's holistic approach to addressing the impacts of food & food waste, which includes three Grind2Energy systems as well as partnering with Cultivate Culinary, a South Bend food rescue nonprofit (read more here and catch their presentation Cultivate-ing community, on October 22nd)

Composting services

South Bend Social Catering will partner with NSS and GoZero Composting Service to ensure our lunches are cleanly and efficiently collected and composted. We will also partner with Cultivate for food rescue efforts (although we are requesting conference participants to share their itinerary so we can plan catering as efficiently as possible!)

Name tags

Badge holders and lanyards will be rented through an Indianapolis-based company, Earthlight. 

The wood overlay badge holders are sourced from a small Midwest family business, the wood overlay paper is a certified FSC Mix using U.S. tree shavings; holders are produced by this small, women-owned business in the USA.  The 100% cotton lanyards have been repurposed from salvaged, 1972 U.S. military webbing, originally diverted from landfill by a scrap warehouse. They are assembled in the USA. Both the badge holders and lanyards will be rented so as to avoid single-use waste, while also avoiding new production of less eco-friendly plastics and polyesters

Carbon Offsets

The NSS recognizes the inherent tradeoffs that come with in-person meetings, and the debate around the carbon offset market. Nonetheless, the NSS agreed that doing nothing to address emissions is no longer an option. As a member based organization, we believe a discussion on the topic is vital, and we encourage your participation in a panel session during the conference. With this rationale, our initial best estimate for an average offset across conference services and participant travel is $25.00. NSS will pay $12.50 per attendee to a verified and reputable carbon offsetting project. The selection of the project will be discussed and made collectively with NSS conference participants at a panel discussion session. (Up in the air: Increasing accountability for air travel emissions and a conversation about NSS carbon offsets on Oct 22nd)

As an NSS member and conference participant, you can take steps to improve our conference's sustainability:

• Share your itinerary by September 22nd. This will help us meet our sustainability goals of minimizing food waste and providing shuttle service to and from downtown hotels. Please share your itinerary here.

• Reusable containers: Bring a reusable water bottle (and coffee cup if you’d like!) to the conference. Water filling stations are located throughout the Notre Dame buildings.

• Use the Whova app to connect and ride-share with fellow conference attendees.

• Transportation: Take advantage of the NSS-arranged downtown hotel shuttle service throughout the conference.

• Contribute to the collective NSS carbon offset fund: Find your original registration confirmation email, and click “add to my order.” You will be directed back to Whova to add only the add-ons you would like (workshops, field trips, and the carbon offset contribution).

• Return your badge holder and lanyard at the end of the conference (Look for the Earthlight drop box at the info desk)