NürnbergMesse has earned a TÜV certificate for its environmental management system and has announced more steps towards holding sustainable trade fairs and conferences.
A large focus is on saving energy at the Nuremberg Exhibition Centre. By 2025, energy consumption by defined users (electricity, heat, cooling) will be reduced by 5-7% from previous levels.
“We achieved the 70-percent savings on our hall lighting by replacing 21 km of fluorescent lamps with LED lights. That doesn’t just save on energy – it will pay for itself in less than three years,” Eckehard Wohlgenannt, environmental and energy manager at NürnbergMesse, says.
The company’s environmental targets include reducing water consumption by 15% and waste accumulation by 20%, both by 2025; and making power generation CO2-neutral by 2028.
“For us, in our double capacity as an organiser of international trade fairs and the operator of an exhibition venue, environmental protection and energy efficiency are key components of our business model that we tie to specific targets as part of our business operations,” says NürnbergMesse Group CEO Peter Ottmann.
The team’s first action was to identify nine fields for action that need to be checked at least once a year: electricity, heating, cooling, emissions, waste, buildings, grounds, building systems, and adjustment to climate change.
To face up to an independent evaluation and get an appraisal of how effective the system is, NürnbergMesse has now had its environmental management system certified by TÜV Süd.
The company’s assets in aiding the environment already include:
- Increasing its in-house power supply with a large-scale photovoltaic array and a battery storage system
- More detailed environmental protection rules for procurement
- Using mainly ecologically friendly cleaning products
- Sorting more than 95% of waste for reusable materials and recycling more than 3%
- Implementing requirements from the German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB), currently as part of the renovation of the staff building
