Circular Collective
How to measure the CO2e impact
The carbon footprint of the tw tagungswirtschaft stand at IMEX 2024 in Hall 8 at Messe Frankfurt also takes into account visitors' journeys to and from the trade fair. This corresponds to Scope 3 of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. Photo: IMEX Group
The carbon footprint of the tw tagungswirtschaft stand at IMEX 2024 in Hall 8 at Messe Frankfurt also takes into account visitors' journeys to and from the trade fair. This corresponds to Scope 3 of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol. Photo: conference industry
The next step on the way to a circular trade fair stand will be to collect activity data from the tw tagungswirtschaft stand after the IMEX 2024 trade fair in order to measure the actual CO2e emissions generated. Clemens Arnold, Managing Director of CSR project partner 2bdifferent, describes the procedure in his specialist article.
tw tagungswirtschaft presented itself at the IMEX trade fair from 14 to 16 May 2024 on a 30 square metre stand in Hall 8 of Messe Frankfurt. In order to calculate and balance the CO2e emissions, the Event Carbon Footprint visualises all emissions generated during the planning, production and implementation of the trade fair appearance in the CO2e-relevant fields of action. This value is calculated according to a validated methodology of the internationally recognised Green House Gas (GHG) Protocol Standard.
This Event Carbon Footprint comprises the greenhouse gases covered by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Kyoto Protocol, as shown in Table 1 below. As their respective global warming potential (GWP) differs greatly, they are converted to CO2 equivalents (CO2e) for better comparability:
Table 1: Greenhouse gases of the Kyoto Protocol
The necessary data collection was prepared in the form of specific survey forms according to the trades and made available to the participating service providers before the trade fair. This was done so that the service providers were familiar with the data to be collected and could already record activity data for mobility journeys, among other things. The final activity data generated during the trade fair was recorded after the end of the trade fair and serves as the basis for determining CO2e emissions. The trades recorded are:
- Stand construction
- Rental furniture
- Catering
- Location (trade fair location)
- Speaker
- Cleaning services
- Arrival and departure of visitors
- Logistics
- Overnight stays
In order to obtain reliable key figures for the individual trades of the trade fair appearance, it is necessary to record relevant data such as mobility, resource and energy use as well as waste quantities per trade. This is the only way for those responsible at tw tagungswirtschaft to derive measures that specifically contribute to the reduction and avoidance of CO2e emissions for trade fair appearances in subsequent years. The issue of credibility is once again actively supported by the approach described. Especially in times when terms such as climate-neutral, climate-positive and climate-optimised can no longer simply be bandied about, but must be explained in a comprehensible manner in the context of increased regulations such as the Green Claims Directive and the Empowering Consumers Directive. For this reason, it was also important to record the CO2e emissions of visitors travelling to and from the tw trade fair stand (Scope 3 of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol).
Climate neutrality in the event industry
The term "climate neutrality" is increasingly being used in the event industry to promote environmentally conscious practices. However, it is often used in a misleading way. Climate neutrality suggests that an event has no harmful impact on the climate, but this is rarely the case. In practice, CO2e emissions are usually offset through compensation projects instead of actually avoiding them. Critics argue that this obscures the real problem and diverts the focus away from necessary emission reductions. Instead of focussing solely on offsetting, the event industry should focus more on concrete measures to avoid emissions and sustainable planning. At the same time, the regulations of the Green Claims Directive and the Empowering Consumers Directive provide clear guidelines on how to deal with such claims in future - namely to provide clear evidence of how the results are achieved. In this context, it is important for the event industry to take into account all emissions from Scope 1 to 3 of the Greenhouse Gas Protocol.
The results
The CO2e emissions of tw tagungswirtschaft's trade fair presence at IMEX 2024 totalled 24 tonnes and were calculated from 50 data points. As it is difficult to imagine what 24 tonnes of CO2e emissions means, we have presented the figure in a different way - based on everyday life: namely how many people could take a shower every day for a year.
Graphic: 2bdifferent
The composition of CO2e emissions is shown in the two charts below. We have deliberately chosen two representations. This separate representation also shows for this event format that the arrival and departure of visitors, with 22,127 kg CO2e emissions out of a total of 24,000 kg CO2e emissions, account for a very high proportion of the total value. In addition to the exhibitor, IMEX as the organiser is also called upon to reduce emissions through a sustainable mobility concept with a mobility platform, for example.
Chart 1: CO2e emissions in kg with arrival and departure of visitors to the tw trade fair stand, illustration: 2bdifferent
Graphic 2: CO2e emissions in kg without arrival and departure of visitors to the tw trade fair stand, illustration: 2bdifferent
As an example, we show below how the activity data for the arrival and departure of visitors to the IMEX 2024 tw trade fair stand was determined: According to the IMEX report, the total number of trade visitors is 12,000 (100% of visitors), including 6,000 people from Germany (50% of visitors) and 6,000 from abroad (50% of visitors).
According to the data and the count by the tw stand team, around 700 visitors came to the tw tagungswirtschaft stand over the three days. Each visitor visited an average of five stands. This means that 100% of the CO2e emissions of 140 visitors were attributed to the tw trade fair presence.
CO2e emissions for exhibition stand construction
With regard to stand construction, the 573.02 kg of CO2e emissions for the materials used for the 34.5 square metre stand confirm the values from the material flow balance already carried out. The low volume of waste and the associated high reuse rate are the key to very low emissions. Below are the top 3 material types with the respective CO2e emission value:
Overall view of emissions
As previously mentioned, the CO2e emissions for the arrival and departure of visitors contribute 22,127 kilograms to the overall result, while the other trades - stand construction, rental furniture, catering, location with cleaning, speakers, logistics and overnight stays - together account for 1,873 kilograms. This shows that the CO2e emissions, which are directly influenced by the tw tagungswirtschaft, are already largely "optimised" in terms of reduction and avoidance. This is underlined once again by the calculation of CO2e emissions per visitor to the tw trade fair stand at IMEX 2024. If we move away from the absolute figures and focus on the CO2e emissions per visitor to this international trade fair format, we arrive at the figure of 171.43 kilograms of CO2e emissions per visitor to the tw trade fair stand.
Clemens Arnold
Photo: 2bdifferent
About Clemens Arnold
Clemens Arnold is Managing Director at 2bdifferent, the consulting agency for sustainability in the event industry. He uses his extensive expertise to advise companies, associations, organisations, event organisers and agencies in the event and sports business. A key area of expertise includes the analysis, evaluation and optimisation of event formats of all kinds according to ecological, social and economic criteria. In this context, the creation of event and corporate carbon footprints as part of CO2e balancing plays a central role.
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