Thousands of meetings inside forty-eight hours, across thousands of square feet, for a client who had been paying to remake the same booth from custom parts every year. Three years later the carbon is down 68% and so is the cost, because they turn out to be the same problem.
CBRE · Las Vegas Convention Center · Las Vegas, USA · 2023-2025 · Real Estate · Design; Consultancy; Production; Project Management
CBRE's ICSC Las Vegas booth is the largest thing the company builds anywhere in the world and the busiest room on its global event calendar. Thousands of meetings happen inside it in under forty-eight hours, across thousands of square feet, at one of America's largest trade show venues.
For years before Pie Factory took it on, it had been built from custom parts, remade almost every year. That model costs a brand an extraordinary amount in three directions at once: storing the parts, refurbishing them, and buying new material when they no longer fit. And because they are custom, they cannot be reconfigured as the brand moves, so every change of direction means starting again.
The brief was therefore not "make it greener". It was: make something striking but flexible, that works as a venue for thousands of meetings, and that behaves like the market leader's booth. That meant getting four things right simultaneously. The meetings themselves, which depend on accessibility, on noise, on light and on access to audiovisual support. Wayfinding, because on a floor that size CBRE has to be findable and instantly recognisable. Prestige, because a market leader's booth cannot be tables and chairs. And the commercials, because none of it was worth doing if it cost more.
The starting point was what had already worked elsewhere, applied to two questions at once: how to get the carbon down, and how to get the cost down. The answer to both turned out to be the same answer.
The booth was rebuilt on modular frames, hired rather than owned, and reconfigurable year after year as the brand changes. Walls are made up from those frames using local rental material rather than purpose-built panels. The material palette is circular throughout, with no single-use items in it. All furniture and lighting is hired. That took the proportion of the booth rented by weight from 1% in 2023 to 86% in 2025.
The rest followed from building inside the local economy. Counters and planters are FSC certified MDF finished in low VOC water-based paint, produced and stored in Nevada rather than crossing the country twice. Graphics are recyclable fabric with zero PVC.
One decision was subtractive and worth naming on its own. The booth's raised floor system was removed entirely and the convention centre's own polished floor used instead. That single change avoided 15 metric tonnes of single-use virgin material, 33,000 pounds of it, and over 7 tonnes of CO2e in a year.
The objection, and it is the industry's standard objection. For years event and design agencies have said they could build this way, but that it would not look as good. That is the argument a market leader has to be talked out of, and no amount of carbon data answers it, because nobody buys a booth to hit a number.
What answered it was the finished room. What we built did not merely hold up against the custom version, it looked considerably better, and that was confirmed both by feedback inside CBRE and by visitors at the show. The reconfigurable frames are also why it keeps getting better: each year starts from a working system rather than a blank page and a new invoice.
Two practical constraints sat underneath. Deleting the raised floor meant redesigning the electrical layout and accepting the venue's own surface as the finish, on a booth judged on first impressions. And booth production in Las Vegas is dominated by a handful of contractors with almost nothing locally sourced, so getting from 0% to 100% of suppliers holding third-party environmental certification meant sustainability training for the production partner and a signed Sustainable Partner Code of Conduct, not a procurement box-tick.
Total booth carbon fell from 39,912kg CO2e in 2023 to 13,322kg in 2024 and 12,613kg in 2025, a 68% reduction. Carbon intensity fell from 2.66kg to 0.84kg CO2e per square foot. Carbon from production materials fell from 75% of the total, 30,010kg, to 19%, 2,357kg. Suppliers holding third-party environmental certification went from 0% to 100%, and suppliers with science-based targets from 0% to 100%. Zero waste to landfill or incineration in every measured year, with 100% of the booth separable at end of life.
And the cost came down with it. That is the part worth understanding rather than admiring. Owning custom parts means paying to store them, paying to refurbish them, and paying again when they no longer fit the brand. Hiring modular frames and building inside the local economy removes all three costs, and removes the freight and the material at the same time. The booth is drastically cheaper because it is drastically more sustainable, and drastically more sustainable because it is cheaper. It runs in both directions.
Carbon measured with TIM, Pie Factory's carbon and cost tool for trade show booths. Indicative, calculated in house, not independently audited. Scope covers embodied carbon of newly created materials, all logistics movements and production facility energy use.
"We wanted to re-invent our booth to 'wow' the audience and to do it in a way that showcased our vision and values as a company. PIE Factory created a booth that did exactly that and, by understanding the fundamentals of event engagement and sustainable design, they even managed to reduce our spend along the way."
Jill Maxwell, Global Head of Events, CBRE
"Amazing. The booth was the talk of the show and as well as looking spectacular and meeting our green ambitions, it catered for our business needs perfectly."
Laura Barr, Americas Retail Lead, CBRE
Hired modular aluminium frames, reconfigurable and infinitely recyclable. Local rental material for wall infill. Recyclable zero-PVC fabric graphics. FSC certified MDF. Low VOC water-based paint. Hired furniture and lighting. The venue's own polished floor. No single-use items.