Nairobi/Shanghai, 2 May 2013 - As citizens across the globe gear up to celebrate World Environment Day (WED) with activities aimed at promoting environmental awareness, Tongji University in Shanghai has announced its annual International Student Conference on Environment and Sustainability (ISCES) will coincide with the global event on and around June 5.
The 2013 theme for WED, the single biggest day for positive action on the environment worldwide, is Think.Eat.Save. Reduce Your Foodprint - building on the global campaign of the same name to reduce food waste and loss launched earlier this year by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and partners.
ISCES 2013, starting on June 5 and lasting for four days, is set to dovetail with this theme, focusing on "Food, Health and Sustainable Development". The conference, initiated in 2011, is an annual even aimed at providing international students with a platform to exchange ideas and understanding on critical environmental issues and jointly create new solutions.
Supported and funded by UNEP, Tongji University and Beijing Green Future Environmental Foundation, and organized by UNEP-Tongji Institute of Environment for Sustainable Development, the conferences held thus far attracted over 400 students from more than 40 countries across the globe.
The conference gives these future leaders, policy makers and activists a firm grounding in good practices and concepts on environment and sustainability, and provides them with a platform to bring the future we want.
This year, WED's official host will be Mongolia, which, as the world's fastest-growing economy, is striving to make its economic future green through switching to clean energy sources and focusing on sustainable mining operations.
For more information on the conference, please refer to the official website of ISCES 2013 or contact ISCES 2013 Organizing Committee:
Official website of ISCES 2013
Email of ISCES 2013 Organizing Committee
About World Environment Day
WED aims to be the biggest and most widely celebrated global day for positive environmental action. WED activities take place year round but climax on June 5. WED celebrations began in *1973 and have grown to become the one of the main vehicles through which the UN stimulates worldwide awareness of the environment and encourages political attention and action. Through WED, the UN Environment Programme is able to personalize environmental issues and enable everyone to realize not only their responsibility, but also their power to become agents for change in support of sustainable and equitable development.
In 2010, the dynamic WED challenge asked people to name baby gorillas in Rwanda to raise awareness, and in 2011 our Goodwill Ambassadors were asked to go head-to-head in a battle to have their supporters carry out the most activities, with the winner then planting a forest. Gisele Bündchen beat Don Cheadle, helping drive 4,229 WED activities in 144 countries - ranging from a bicycle rally in Nepal to a public litter clean-up in the Republic of Congo, and an environmental street procession by young people in Albania. Other celebrities such as Vampire Diaries star Ian Somerhalder and Bollywood regulars Priyanka Chopra and Rahul Bose have promoted the event over the last few years.
Visit the WED site here
Think.Eat.Save. Reduce Your Foodprint
The campaign harnesses the expertise of organizations such as WRAP (Waste and Resources Action Programme), Feeding the 5,000 and other partners, including national governments, who have considerable experience targeting and changing wasteful practices. It aims to accelerate action and provide a global vision and information-sharing portal for the many and diverse initiatives currently underway around the world.
Visit www.thinkeatsave.org
*The date was corrected on 2 June 2022
