In line with its principles of consistently reducing environmental impact, organizers of IMEX America, the IMEX Group, have announced key results from the inaugural Las Vegas show’s first sustainability program. The report was conducted by IMEX America’s sustainability consultants, MeetGreen.
During the debut of IMEX America in October 2011 in Las Vegas, the IMEX Group set out to collect extensive baseline data against which it could set sustainable benchmarks and report environmental achievements and progress over future years. The measures included creating programs and partnerships with all major constituents of the tradeshow including sponsors, exhibitors, attendees, and vendors/service providers. They also incorporated a range of other business activities such as back-office functions.
As promised, the IMEX America show featured a number of meetings sustainability best practices at the Sands Expo and in various partner hotels. They included the use of show badges and hosted buyer luggage tags made from recycled paper, badge lanyards made from plant silk and sustainable badge holders. Show bags were reusable and made of recyclable polypropylene, exhibitor waste baskets were reused or recycled, signage was sourced within 100 miles of the event, and 99 percent of those signs are now being stored locally for re-use next year.
Working closely with the show’s exhibition venue, the Sands Expo, the IMEX America team also opted to use compostable rather than disposable service-ware wherever possible. After use, it was taken, along with food waste, to a local compost facility. In an effort to repurpose any original disposable service-ware that couldn’t be used, IMEX and the Sands also donated items to the Teacher Exchange, a Las Vegas non-profit that collects supplies for resource-deprived teachers.
IMEX America attendees were also encouraged to recycle their badges on their way out of the show by placing them in a box designated to one of two local non-profit organizations: Opportunity Village, which employs people with intellectual disabilities in Las Vegas, and Shade Tree who provide safe shelter to homeless and abused women and children in crisis. Each of them received a cash donation from IMEX America.
“Our mission going into the show was to reduce, reuse, recycle and respect,” said Carina Bauer, CEO, the IMEX Group. “We think we made some very positive strides towards doing these things right out of the gate and are looking forward to making our performance even stronger at the 2012 show through more innovation, more partnerships and more knowledge about the best way to implement sustainable practices in Las Vegas.
“Being as green as possible is an important part of the IMEX culture, and we extend this commitment into our professional education programs because we know that many others in the industry share the same desire to minimize environmental impact in systematic and measurable ways.”
To establish green and CSR goals for the 2012 IMEX America show, IMEX and its sustainability partners, MeetGreen, now have some important benchmark data on which to measure success. The carbon footprint avoided during the show amounted to 1.52 metric tons of Co2E. Also, by eliminating bottled water at show-sponsored events and in locations such as the hosted buyer lounge and press center, more than 28 thousand liters of water was saved.
“Given that the APEX/ASTM Environmentally Sustainable Event Standards have now been launched, we are benchmarking the IMEX America show practices against Level 1 of the standards,” said Bauer. “Fortunately, we have the enthusiastic support of our major suppliers to do what can be done to implement as much as possible for IMEX America 2012. Realistically, we expect that achieving Level 1 will require a multi-year commitment from both our internal team and our vendor partners.”
