Centro Banamex Exhibition and Convention Centre

Centro Banamex (Banamex ) is Mexico City’s premier entertainment and exhibition centre. Located in the heart of the city, the spacious venue has a flexible layout that allows it to effortlessly host events of all sizes. The complex extends over 182,000msq and is ideal for exhibitions and entertainment, as well as business conferences, seminars, product launches, conventions, social events, and weddings.

Banamex is fully equipped with four multipurpose halls, 25 conference halls, multiple meeting rooms and a number of large public spaces; allowing it to host groups from five to 50,000 people simultaneously. There are in excess of 10,000 hotel rooms within a five kilometre radius, making it an ideal venue for international functions.

Banamex also has established itself as one of Mexico’s most environmentally sustainable enterprises and as such, it actively encourages partners, suppliers, clients and visitors to participate in eco-friendly, socially responsible practices. With EarthCheck, the centre is setting new benchmarks in sustainability and this is proving to have positive flow-on effects with other operators throughout the country.

Centro Banamex has undertaken environmentally friendly practices for many years, which included joining the EarthCheck Program in 2009. In its first year of benchmarking, the complex achieved extremely successful benchmark results across all ranges of environmental indicators; validating itself as a leading organisation in sustainable practices.

Key Performance Areas

Reducing the use of freshwater and wastewater generation

Water management is a key factor in the everyday functioning of Centro Banamex. As the complex has a number of green spaces that require irrigation, and a capacity to cater for 50,000 people at any one time, the pressure placed on large potable water supplies can be extremely high. Water saving measures have been integrated into daily operations to help reduce water consumption.

Initiatives include:
Banamex has installed water-savings fixtures throughout the complex to reduce its consumption of potable water. Low flow taps and toilets as well as waterless urinals have been implemented throughout the bathrooms on site. These water savings fittings resulted in a water savings rating of 57.8 points, 7.8 points better than Baseline Level.

It is part of the centre’s policies that leak inspections are undertaken on a weekly basis. When leaks are found, maintenance staff are immediately notified and any required repairs are undertaken. As a result, there is minimal wastage of potable water supply, resulting in 251.4L per msq potable
water consumption, which was 79.5% better than Best Practice.

Banamex has a wastewater treatment plant on site that processes 100% of the centre’s residual wastewater. Once treated, this water is reused to water the green spaces of the complex. This achieved a recycled/captured water rating of 100%.

Energy efficiency and reducing greenhouse gas emmisions

Centro Banamex has the potential to use considerably high levels of energy in its regular activities due to its substantial size (182,000msq ). However, various initiatives have been implemented to reduce consumption and resulting greenhouse gas emissions.

Initiatives include:

The complex utilises energy efficient lighting in all restrooms, administrative offices, meeting rooms and common areas to reduce the amount of energy consumed
on site. Lights are also turned off whenever their use is not necessary. This contributed to an extremely low level of energy consumption by the complex of 208.4MJ per msq, which was 76.5% better than Best Practice.

Escalators are only turned on during events; stairs are used at all other times to further reduce energy consumption.

A bus is provided to employees for transit to and from the centre for work. This encourages employees to leave their car at home and help reduce greenhouse gas
emissions.

In 2010, Banamex partnered with “Reforestemos Mexico” to develop a tree planting and forest conservation program that would help offset the centre’s emissions.

Additionally, the centre sources 42.8% of its energy from renewable sources, further minimizing its environmental impact.

Solid waste reduction

Waste management is a significant issue in Mexico City and Centro Banamex has become a leading organisation in the sustainable handling of waste by implementing a number of practices.

Initiatives include:

Banamex uses separate waste disposal bins to classify and segregate waste. Organic and inorganic waste receptacles are located throughout the complex, as well as metals (non-ferrous) and plastic (PET) to ensure separation of different waste materials for recycling. All waste is sent to a recycling plant, resulting in a waste recycling rating was 72 points, 22 points better than Baseline Level.

Employees are encouraged to separate waste and integrate recycling practices into their working habits. The centre management regularly motivates and educates the staff on recycling practices to use at work and at home.

After banners are used for events they are donated to foundations that work with less
privileged communities for reuse.

Banamex prints documents on both sides of the paper to reduce the amount paper consumed. All printing paper used throughout the centre is recycled paper, which after use is separated and given to an external organisation for further recycling. Additionally, the centre uses electronic options instead of printed materials
wherever possible.

All of these initiatives have aided in reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill by the complex, which was 11.4L per msq in 2009/10, 83% better than Best
Practice.

Sustainable purchasing to reduce waste

Sustainable purchasing can significantly improve the environmental impact of an organisation and encourage better practices from suppliers and partners. As
such, Centro Banamex has implemented a number of procedures that reinforce sustainable procurement of external products.

Initiatives include:

All cleaning products used throughout the venue are environmentally friendly and/or biodegradable, resulting in a cleaning products rating of 89.1 points, which is 9.1 points better than Best Practice.

Printers and fax machines used by the complex only use recycled paper. Banamex uses two types of pesticides: RACUMIN, which is green labelled and 100% biodegradable, and FICAM, which is yellow labelled and 50% biodegradable. The use of these environmentally friendly pesticide products achieved a pesticide products rating of 91.3 points, 11.3 points better than Best Practice.

The centre also encourages its suppliers and partners to operate sustainably and utilize sustainable products wherever possible.

Community empowerment and support

Proactively supporting the local community is a key focus of Centro Banamex. Banamex provides job opportunities, economic gain, and attracts international visitors for both business and tourism purposes. Further, Banamex actively strives to improve their local environment through a number of conservation and reforestation projects.

Initiatives include:

The venue supports its local community by sourcing a large portion of products and services from nearby suppliers. Ninety percent of the centre’s food and material supplies are produced locally and a large portion of promotional material is made in Mexico from recycled and biodegradable material.

Banamex also supports its community by providing job opportunities to local citizens, resulting in a community commitment of 70%, which is 10% better than Baseline
Level. The centre encourages sustainability to staff, visitors and clients in many ways, including promoting ‘green events’ to clients, where they are educated on how to
make their event at the complex environmentally friendly.

Banamex also provides staff, clients, partners and visitors with a ‘Green Checklist’ that contains a list of everyday things they can do both in the workplace and at home to further reduce their environmental footprint. Through the “Actitud Verde” (Green Attitude) Program, the centre communicates to all clients and visitors the ten ecological actions that they can use to improve their environmental footprint. These include reducing energy and water consumption, waste classification, reusing
and recycling products, for example.

The venue’s environmental awareness also is promoted through posters, panels, and publications in tourism and business sector magazines. Additionally, the Tourism and Events Going Green (TEGG) Expo is held regularly at Banamex to promote sustainability actions. The centre has implemented a reforestation and forest care program that features the following five interconnected workshops:

• “Living a Healthy Forest” introduces the characteristics of a healthy forest;
• “Germinate the Reality” involves staff participating in planting seeds in an on-site greenhouse;
• “Land Preparation” focuses on improving conditions of the land where seedlings grown in the greenhouses will be planted;
• “Throwing Roots” is when the trees are planted in the new land conditions;
• “Forests that Keep Growing” involves maintaining and caring for the new trees.

Banamex also supports the government program National Agency for Family Development (DIF) by providing bread donations twice a week to centers aiding children and elderly community citizens. These initiatives achieved a community contributions rating of 66.7 points, which was 16.7 points better than Baseline Level.