The Global Association of the Exhibition Industry (UFI) has awarded IFEMA MADRID the 2022 UFI Industry Partner Award.
UFI’s award is designed to recognise organisations’ contributions to the exhibition industry which, in IFEMA MADRID’s case, is how the exhibition has used partnerships with specialised companies to support its trade show-focused projects.
The award was attributed to IFEMA MADRID’s project to sustainably transform the show’s carpets. As an alliance between the companies, it the exhibition states that it endeavours to reuse this waste to manufacture trade fair furniture.
IFEMA MADRID added that it has been working to improve the sustainability of its events and reduce their environmental impact over time. In 2021, the show addressed the challenge of decreasing waste from exhibitions by re-using 50 tonnes of carpet.
As a result, IFEMA MADRID reduced its CO2 emissions by more than 8 tonnes and states that it has set its sights on doubling these figures in 2022.
Juan Arrizabalaga, general manager of IFEMA MADRID, says: “We believe in strength in numbers, so in recent years we have forged strategic alliances, pooling our efforts to improve our impact on sustainability.”
Arrizabalaga explained how the show’s carpet is re-used, continuing: “[Our] triple alliance allows this sustainability project to be sequenced in three phases: recycling the carpet, converting it into chippings and reusing the material to produce trade fair furniture - closing the sustainable cycle within the exhibition environment by collaborating with specialised companies".
Alongside winning UFI’s Industry Partner Award, IFEMA MADRID was also a finalist in three other categories: Sustainability, for the show’s energy savings of the last five years; Marketing, its recent brand change; and Operations, for the Visual Space project.
