SYDNEY The Sydney Convention and Exhibition Centre (SCEC) has joined a new government-run sustainability scheme that will help it build environmental awareness within the business events industry.

SCEC has joined the 18-month Sustainability Advantage Programme to help the venue and its clients achieve better sustainability standards. SCES’s chief executive, Ton van Amerongen, said: “Participation in this scheme will raise the bar higher for us and help us discover new ways that we can reduce the impact of events on the environment.”

Since 2003, SCEC has increased recycling volumes by 184 per cent annually and in 2008 it recycled 46 per cent of its exhibition waste stream. SCEC is currently one of only a small number of international convention centres undertaking the accreditation process to become a silver Green Globe benchmarked venue.