Woodlands.co.uk was chosen as the sustainability sponsor for the February 2023 conference, State of Open 2023.  Mostly held for those working in computing and data, this event was held at the QE2 centre in Westminster, with several hundred individuals who networked and learnt more about open source, open data and open standards.  The highlight was the speech by Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, explaining that Wiki isn't just about free and open information but about structure: their whole model is unusually open. It's truly democratic amongst wikipedians and is the antithesis of top-down models which dominate most of the world's organisations.

As sponsors, woodlands.co.uk committed to plant at least one tree for every conference delegate as a carbon-offsetting measure and to encourage biodiversity. It turns out that at this conference relatively little extra carbon was produced for various reasons - the QE2 conference centre itself has strong environmental policies and the delegates were mostly either UK-based or were travelling to Europe anyway for a related conference.  Nethertheless many of them took away free eco-merchandise from the Woodlands stand, including seeds for planting and wooden pens.  Lots of the conference attendees were also interested in buying land for tree-planting so that their company would be offsetting its own carbon footprint and the staff would have a nearby place to go and enjoy.

Sustainability sponsors can occasionally be accused of offering 'greenwash" but in this case there was no risk of that because the OpenUK movement is already so committed to sustainability and to using software to reduce carbon emissions.  And in this case, too, the sponsor was offering practical measures such as the planting of defined numbers of trees in the UK (in Kent) rather than a theoretical payment to a nebulous foreign project.  Conference participants were offered the chance to take away seeds to plant their own oak, cherry, lime, chestnut or sycamore trees.

The role of sustainability sponsors at conferences varies but can involve financial support or the promotion of sustainability initiatives.  Some eco sponsors also offer energy audits, sustainability assessments or carbon footprint analysis.  According to the AI chatbot, ChatGPT, "Overall, sustainability sponsors play a critical role in supporting the transition to a more sustainable future by providing resources, expertise, and advocacy to organisations working on sustainability issues."