CBRE’s booth at the Gaylord National Harbour was built directly onto the venue floor. No raised platform avoided 600kg of single use virgin material.
CBRE · Gaylord National Harbour · Washington DC, USA · 2024 · Real Estate · Design; Production; Project Management
CoreNet Global is the industry body for corporate real estate, and its summit is where occupiers, heads of workplace and their advisers meet in one room. The 2024 programme centred on people-centric real estate decision-making across portfolio management, location strategy, risk, workplace design, service delivery, employee experience, facilities management, ESG and DEI. CBRE sells into precisely that audience. The brief was a booth aligned to the circular economy and built locally, which is a commercial requirement before it is an environmental one: a booth produced near the show is not freighted across a continent and not stored on the wrong side of it.
The booth was designed for the circular economy and built entirely in a US production house, with every rented element delivered from within Washington. Framing was FSC certified timber. Graphics were recyclable fabric with zero PVC, so no toxic materials were used on any graphic and the banners can be fully recycled at eventual end of life. The reception counter was FSC MDF finished in low VOC water based paint. All furniture was rented, and the reception was reused from previous CBRE booths along with the graphics.
The single largest decision was subtractive. The booth’s flooring system was removed and the conference centre’s own polished floor used instead. That avoided 600kg of single use virgin material, 1,323 pounds of it.
Three elements were specified to leave the show and come back: the fabric graphics, the totem and the reception counter are all built to be reused on future CBRE booths. After the event the booth was stored locally in the United States rather than shipped home, ready for the next show.
The flooring decision is the one that needed making twice. A raised floor is what a booth of this scale is expected to have, it hides cabling, and removing it means redesigning the electrical layout and accepting the venue’s own surface as the finish. The measurement settled it: 600kg of virgin material avoided, against a floor nobody mentioned afterwards.
The flooring system avoided 600kg of single use virgin material. 100% of materials were separable at end of life. Zero PVC throughout. Zero waste to landfill or incineration. Reception and graphics were reused from previous CBRE booths, and the fabric graphics, totem and reception counter go on to future ones.
FSC certified timber. Recyclable zero PVC fabric graphics. FSC MDF finished in low VOC water based paint. The conference centre’s own polished floor. Rented furniture. Reused reception counter and graphics.
NDI Worldwide: production, logistics, audio visual and on-site assembly. NDI Worldwide have undergone sustainable events training with Pie Factory and have signed Pie Factory’s Sustainable Partner Code of Conduct.
Sustainability advice by Simon Evans, CEnv ISEP, Sustainability Director.