Read about why the British Embassy in Budapest recently presented all their QBP guests with a bag of dirt.

This year the British Embassy, Budapest celebrated the Queen's Birthday Party at the Residence on 17 June. And it was a good chance to tell our 830 guests about the Embassy's environment protection work as well as demonstrating this in some practical ways.

The invitations we sent out encouraged our guests to take a bus instead of arriving by car to the Residence. This year the card listing sponsors - which we usually attach to the invitation - was made from 100% recycled paper and informed guests about the green activities in which they could participate during the event. We had considered purely electronic invitations but this idea fell foul of security concerns.

To minimise our impact on the environment we encouraged caterers to order and serve only seasonal vegetables and fruits. For example, Wilkinson's sausages were made in Hungary, Costa Café served their drinks in recycled paper cups, Tesco promoted brochures about their green activities. Local Hungarian wine was served.

We have been working in partnership for some time with the Gödöllő University Climate Office. They are the creators of Hungary’s first ever dedicated zero carbon university model. They set up a tent in the Residence garden where they carried out carbon footprint testing. The test calculates a figure based on a person's lifestyle e.g. the way of travelling. As part of their activity a bicycle ridden by guests generated electricity - which was used to light our green logo and slogan, "We Do Care".

On leaving, each guest was given a paper bag - made from recycled paper - with a bag of fertiliser and flower seeds, representing the weight of an average person's daily CO2 emission. All of our guests were very happy to receive this useful present and promised to make good use of it. At the end of the party all waste was collected separately and recycled.

We intend to build further on this achievement next year.

HMA Greg Dorey's speech at the Queen's Birthday Party 2009 [DOC 28KB, new window]

You can read more about the Embassy's green activities on our Green Team's page.

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