Messeforum Oy makes emissions data available to its customers
Messeforum Oy’s new service aims to make the climate impacts of exhibition stands concrete and transparent. Instead of describing sustainability through general claims, our customers will get to know the carbon footprint of their own exhibition stand. They can use this information in their sustainability management and reporting, as well as in developing their event and marketing activities.
From 12 October 2026, all our customers will receive a certificate for the emissions calculation of their exhibition stand and information on the stand’s carbon footprint.
Our emissions calculation covers emissions throughout the entire life cycle of the exhibition stand. The calculation includes, among other things, construction materials, furniture and equipment, transport, electricity used at the stand, transport of materials generated during dismantling to waste treatment or reuse, and Messeforum project and construction personnel’s travel and accommodation related to the trade fair. Messeforum Oy is a pioneer in carrying out exhibition stand emissions calculations of this breadth and level of detail.
Why is exhibition stand emissions data useful for customers?
Companies’ need to identify and understand the climate impacts of their own operations and value chains is continuously increasing. Sustainability reporting requirements are evolving, and in practice the data collection of larger companies also extends to their suppliers and partners.
An exhibition stand is part of the customer’s value chain, and its emissions data can support the company’s own data collection and reporting needs – whether for statutory or voluntary sustainability reporting or for the growing emissions-data needs of customers and principals within the value chain.
Building exhibition stands generates emissions from materials, manufacturing, transport, energy use and waste, for example. When emissions data is produced as part of delivering the stand, the customer does not need to determine the stand’s carbon footprint afterwards. The stand’s climate impact therefore does not remain at the level of an estimate or a general sustainability claim; instead, the customer has calculated and verified data that can be incorporated into the overall picture of emissions from its operations.
When working with Messeforum Oy, the customer therefore receives two outcomes from one project: a completed exhibition stand and usable information on the stand’s climate impact, for example for its own sustainability reporting or for use within its value chain.
With emissions data, we also want to encourage our customers to work systematically over the long term to curb climate emissions. When a customer has concrete information on the emissions of its exhibition stand, the data can also be used to plan future exhibition participation more sustainably. This is therefore not only about calculating the emissions of a single stand. We want to help our customers learn from today’s emissions and make choices based on emissions data in the future as well.
Messeforum’s emissions calculation is based on a standard and a verified calculation method
Calculating emissions from exhibition stands is not new to us. We have been mapping the emissions of the stands we deliver for a long time and have calculated the emissions of every stand we have built individually since 2020. What is new is that we are now systematically making carbon-footprint information available to our customers as well.
Our partner in emissions calculation is OpenCO2net Oy, a specialist company focused on carbon-footprint calculation tools and services and the developer of the OpenCO2net carbon-footprint platform. In the calculation, exhibition stand design data is combined with up-to-date emission factors from the OpenCO2 emissions database via the OpenCO2 API.
OpenCO2net has reviewed the operating principle of our emissions calculator and validated the calculation of exhibition stand emissions. The calculation is based on ISO 14067, the standard for calculating the carbon footprint of products.
From a carbon-neutral exhibition stand to more effective use of emissions data
With the new emissions calculation service, we are also changing the way we talk about the climate impacts of exhibition stand construction. Going forward, we will discontinue the concept of a carbon-neutral exhibition stand and the automatic offsetting of emissions associated with it.
Since 2020, our carbon-neutral exhibition stand has made us a pioneer in sustainable exhibition stand construction both in Finland and internationally. The carbon neutrality of the stands we have delivered has been achieved in accordance with ISO 14068 by first calculating and reducing emissions in every possible way and then offsetting the remaining emissions in a genuine and additional manner. Our offsetting partner has been CO2esto, which purchases and cancels emission allowances from the EU Emissions Trading System.
However, the operating environment is changing. EU regulation on environmental claims directed at consumers, for example the so called EmpCo-directive, is tightening requirements, including for carbon-neutrality claims that are based on offsetting emissions outside the product’s value chain.
Although the regulation currently applies only to consumer business, as a B2B operator we want to anticipate the direction of development. We believe that the focus of corporate sustainability work will increasingly shift towards measurable and reliable emissions data, transparency and systematic emissions-reduction measures.
Science Based Targets -initiative guides our own emissions-reduction work
Going forward, we will focus even more strongly on where we can have the greatest impact in our own operations and how we can best support our customers in their climate work: measuring exhibition stand emissions, identifying their sources and systematically reducing the emissions of the stands we deliver.
Our logic is simple: to manage emissions, they must first be measured. Once we know the sources of emissions, we can target measures where they have the greatest impact.
The same principle now works even more strongly for the benefit of our customers. Instead of a single carbon-neutral exhibition stand, we provide more concrete information that helps our customers operate more responsibly as part of broader supply chains and monitor the emissions trend of their own events.
Our emissions-reduction work in exhibition stand construction is continuous and systematic: we focus, for example, on innovating new ways of building exhibition stands, finding lower-emission materials, making more effective use of the circular economy, and optimizing logistics and travel related to stand delivery.
In addition to continuously seeking new ways to reduce emissions from the exhibition stands we deliver, we invest in climate-change mitigation across all our other operations. We are committed to the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi) and to the ten principles of the UN Global Compact, including principles related to the environment.Our SBTi target is to reduce our Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions by 42% by 2030 from a 2023 base year. We are also committed to measuring and reducing our Scope 3 emissions, which include all emissions generated by our exhibition stand construction. We calculate all our emissions annually in accordance with Greenhouse Gas Protocol standards and report on our emissions and the work undertaken to reduce them, as well as on our other sustainability work, on our website.
What happens next?
From 12 October 2026, all our customers will receive a certificate for the emissions calculation reviewed by OpenCO2net Oy and for the resulting carbon footprint of the exhibition stand delivered by Messeforum.
During autumn 2026, we will still deliver a few exhibition stands that we previously promised to our customers as carbon neutral. For these stands, we will proceed as agreed: we will calculate and reduce emissions and offset the remaining emissions. Customers will receive these stands automatically as carbon neutral and will be provided with a certificate for a carbon-neutral exhibition stand.
Going forward, emissions offsetting will be an optional additional service selected separately by the customer, agreed on a project-by-project basis and priced separately. If desired, the customer can therefore combine verified emissions data for its exhibition stand with reliable and additional offsetting of the remaining emissions through CO2esto’s emission cutter service.
Overall, our focus is firmly on the future: accurate emissions calculation, continuous emissions reduction, and ensuring that our customers receive reliable emissions data from their exhibition stands to support their own sustainability work.
Claims do not change the emissions of exhibition stands. Emissions are brought under control by measuring, understanding and reducing them.
If you have any questions about Messeforum’s carbon footprint calculation for exhibition stands, please do not hesitate to contact us:
Arto Varanki, Managing Director
arto.varanki@messeforum.fi
Virpi Hopeasaari, Marketing and Sustainability
virpi.hopeasaari@messeforum.fi
Order an exhibition stand with a calculated carbon footprint for your company!
Contact our sales team and order an exhibition stand for your company from Messeforum Oy, complete with a calculated carbon footprint. We are systematically reducing emissions from exhibition stand construction and calculate and report the carbon footprint of our exhibition stands. With Messeforum, you get genuinely sustainable exhibition stands.