Sustainability at top of industry agenda
Olympia, one of London's leading venues, has been crowned Exhibition Venue of the Year at the 2006 Event Awards. This prestigious award was presented in recognition of Olympia's continued excellence in the area of environmental sustainability at the award ceremony on Friday 22 September.
The award highlights Olympia's industry-leading position on environmental sustainability and the increased importance that the events industry is placing on environmentally healthy venues.
Debbie Law, Olympia Customer Services Director, said;
I'm delighted to have won this award and that Olympia has been recognised for the success of its sustainability programme. The commitment and dedication of the entire team at Olympia, in partnership with our service partners, suppliers and customers, has been truly outstanding and I'm looking forward to the challenge of developing our activities further over the coming years.
Olympia has implemented a number of initiatives within the last 18 months to improve the environmental sustainability of the venue, including large-scale onsite recycling of exhibition and office waste by CCS, the incumbent cleaning contractor, the installation of sustainable hall carpet and a venue energy saving programme. From 2004 to 2005 Olympia reduced the amount of waste it sent to landfill by an impressive 765 tonnes and, to the end of August this year, has reduced the amount of waste sent to landfill by a further 308 tonnes. The success of all these initiatives has resulted in EC&O Venues, which owns and manages Olympia, Earls Court and the Brewery, being asked to chair the AEV (Association of Event Venues) Sustainability Working Group.
Earls Court is also part of the wider sustainability programme at EC&O Venues, which was recognised at the AEO Excellence Awards 2006 when Earls Court and Olympia were presented with the Environmental Sustainability Award.
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For further information on EC&O Venues:
Lynne Marie Cox, Communications Manager
lynnemarie.cox@eco.co.uk/ 020 7370 8838
Notes to Editors
EC&O Venues is the UK's premier exhibition and conference venue manager. The business comprises Earls Court, Olympia and the Brewery, London's leading venues for exhibitions, conferences and special events. The three venues hold over 1000 events each year, attracting over 3.8 million visitors and 30,000 exhibiting companies.
CCS (Canberra Cleaning Services) is responsible for all cleaning at Olympia. This encompasses event cleaning, venue cleaning, stand cleaning, office cleaning, and recycling and waste management.