Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC) Acknowledges the Traditional Owners of Narrm, the Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present, and to Elders of all First Nations communities that visit MCEC.

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Celebrating World Environment Day

Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC) is one of the largest pieces of public infrastructure in Melbourne and we believe with this comes a responsibility to be leaders in achieving sustainable business practice.

MCEC has implemented many sustainable initiatives over the years and our internal cross departmental working group, ‘Operation Green’, continues to champion new and innovative ways to improve the venue’s environmental footprint.

On World Environment Day we celebrate our sustainability achievements to date and highlight the exciting projects we have in progress.

Our achievements:

  • First convention centre in the world to be award a 6-star green star environmental rating.

  • Decreased energy consumption by 30% over the past 2 years.

  • Eliminated the use of bottled water in catering, saved 235,000 plastic water bottles per year.

  • Diverted 63% of all waste from landfill using 15 waste streams.

  • Achieved over 100 pick-ups (28,542 meals) to OzHarvest’s food rescue donation program.

  • Introduced new bin signage to reduce contamination of mixed recyclables.

  • Offering Keep Cups and discounted coffee rates for reusable cups at our cafes.

  • Eliminated plastic straws from cafes and switching to recyclable napkins. Diverting 30,000 plastic straws annually from landfill.

Projects in progress:

  • Replacing 560 exhibition bay lights with LED lighting resulting in a 70% reduction on current energy usage.

  • Toilets in the new expansion designed to maximise water savings.

  • Joined forces with reputable Melbourne organisations to support the development of a wind farm in regional Victoria. This enables us to offset the projected electricity for our 20,000 square metre expansion with renewable energy.