A host of leading multinationals have committed to monitor and reduce their carbon footprint at expos using AI, in a project to tackle ‘build and burn’ at CES and other major trade fairs.
Amazon, Dolby and Panasonic are among the founding adopters of Trade Show Impact Manager (TIM), which allows users to snap their booth with an AI ‘carbon lens’ and get an estimate of their exhibit’s footprint in as little as 30 seconds.
The full list of TIM’s initial partners includes:
- Amazon
- Panasonic
- Dolby
- CBRE
- Pernod Ricard
- Dell
- Visa
- JLL
- Knight Frank
- Paypal
TIM has been created by sustainability campaigner Nick Marks, founder of mission-driven innovation hub Pie Factory, and CTO Zak Homuth, who founded Upverter and has held senior roles at Altium and Sheertex.
Nick and Zak hope their app, which has been trained using data from thousands of expo booths, will encourage greater responsibility among expo attendees and mark a before-and-after for B2B events.
40 times worse for the planet than music festivals
Expos have long flown under their radar for their approach to sustainability, but Pie Factory’s data shows that the typical expo emits 40 times more carbon than the average music festival.
These emissions come from a range of sources, from delegate travel to water consumption, but one of the key contributing factors is the way exhibitors create and then dispose of their booths; all too often, booths and exhibition features are simply ‘built and burned’ rather than repurposed.
The issue has sparked controversy in Japan, where the architect of the Great Ring, the centrepiece of the Osaka Expo and the largest wooden architectural structure on Earth, claims the majority of the structure will be burned as wood chips (the claim is disputed by event organisers).
Now, TIM promises to create a platform for change by allowing exhibitors and event organisers to transform their smartphones into carbon capture tools and get near-instant reads on their booth’s environmental impact.
‘Time to address the elephant in the hall’
Commenting on the wave of sign-ups, Nick Marks said: “Since the days of the World’s Fair and their ‘ghost attractions’, expos have left behind a trail of waste and abandonment. Yet their carbon footprint has gone practically untouched, even though millions of people attend them and billions of dollars flow through them.
“It’s time to address the elephant in the hall. Our app allows the people who host events and the people who exhibit at them to get quick, clear and comprehensive read-outs of their carbon footprint.
“Responsible companies, the ones that care about their legacy as much as their immediate prospects, will welcome this.”
Jill Maxwell, Global Head of Events at CBRE, added: “TIM has empowered us to better understand and vastly improve the footprint of our global trade shows”.
