Informa and the US Green Building Council (USGBC) announced the release of the 2018 Greenbuild Sustainability Report, highlighting valuable metrics and key benchmarks regarding the impact on sustainable sourcing, community involvement, and carbon footprint reduction at the 2018 Greenbuild International Conference and Expo, held last November at McCormick Place in Chicago. The event achieved an overall 86 per cent waste diversion rate.

“We’re thrilled to have made such great strides for event sustainability,” said Sherida Sessa, Greenbuild Brand Director, Informa. “We had a lot of ‘firsts’ in 2018 and tried new approaches that worked well. Our hope is that these achievements will be adopted through the events industry. Greenbuild’s education is about sustainability in the built environment, but the way the event is produced leads to these sustainability wins.” The comprehensive report details the sustainability initiatives implemented for the 2018 event, through a review of all objectives, goals and best practices. Case studies provide detailed overviews of sustainability strategies and initiatives including waste diversion, attendee and stakeholder engagement, sourcing and donation of materials, performance tracking improvements, and community engagement. Highlights include the elimination of single-use plastics, 28,000 pledges cast by attendees, and more than 20,000 pounds of carbon offset.

“Greenbuild continuously seeks to set the standard for event sustainability. This is only possible through the support of partners and vendors as well as our Greenbuild Host Committee,” said Kim Heavner, Vice President, conference and events at USGBC. “For the second year, we incorporated the TRUE Zero Waste Rating System, and elevated our tracking processes while capturing our waste reduction efforts.”

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