Dear NIME,
greetings from the new environmental officers, Raul Masu, John Sullivan and Adam Pultz Melbye.
The past month we have been working on an environmental statement (see below) and would love the feedback of the community before posting it on the website. Please let us know your thoughts.
As you see below, we are additionally working towards building a repository of resources that may be of help to individual researchers and the community at large, in terms of addressing environmental issues.
All the best, Raul, John and Adam
Environmental Statement:
Every action we perform, including research, has an impact on our ecosystem. We acknowledge that we live in a time of unprecedented environmental crisis caused by human activity and the intensified use of fossil fuel technologies. NIME is committed to lessening the environmental impact of our field through a continuous evaluation of our infrastructure, tools and consumption.
As the annual conference is the cornerstone of the NIME community, we believe environmental sustainability and conservation should be considered in its planning and execution, and priority given to venues and suppliers that demonstrate commitment to these areas. Beyond the conference, we advocate research and artistic practices that support these same principles of sustainability and conservation.
Specifically, we wish to address the following topics:
- Work with steering committee and conference organisers to create a more sustainable NIME conference
- Promote environmental awareness in our use of tools, technologies, and materials by providing information and resources to researchers [see below]
- Work with the ethics and diversity committees to ensure that sustainability measures observe and are inclusive of varying geographical, social and economic realities
- Encourage conference submissions that address these above issues
As humans, we have a responsibility towards our environment and ecosystem.
As artists and researchers, we have the ability to give voice to climate change and to confront and question damaging privileges and habits, through the development of new practices, technologies and infrastructures that lessen our planetary impact.
As individuals, our impact is negligible but as a community, we can make a difference.
To support sustainable practices within and beyond NIME, we have created a repository containing information and green resources for environmental issues in NIME research. This repository will be continuously updated and contain information, ideas, and suggestions for how we can lessen our individual as well as institutional footprint. It is softly curated by the environmental officers, and we highly encourage everyone to submit requests for additions and edits. We hope that this will become a resource, not only for evaluating our environmental impact but also spawn new ideas, designs, sonic works, and collaborations, possibly having an impact also beyond the boundaries of NIME research. [We will add here a the link to the repository when this statement will be published on the NIME website]