Better Stands Wins 2026 UFI Sustainable Development Award

© Better Stands

Better Stands has been named the winner of the 2026 UFI Sustainable Development Award, recognising the initiative’s approach to reducing carbon emissions associated with stand construction across the exhibition industry.

Presented by UFI, The Global Association of the Exhibition Industry, this year’s award focused specifically on the “Best Carbon Reduction Initiative”, recognising projects taking meaningful and measurable steps to reduce carbon emissions and highlighting practices that can be replicated or adapted across the wider exhibition ecosystem.

The award places particular emphasis on initiatives capable of moving sustainability from individual projects towards broader industry adoption. Better Stands addresses one of the exhibition sector’s long-standing sustainability challenges: the reliance on single-use stand construction.

Joerg Zeissig, IFES President and Co-Chair of the Better Stand Initiative, comments: “Winning the 2026 UFI Sustainable Development Award is a remarkable achievement for the Better Stands Initiative, and I am, on behalf of many supporters and team members, immensely proud of what our global community has accomplished together so far.

This recognition reflects the commitment of many stakeholders such as organisers, venues, service providers, exhibitors, assessors, and associations worldwide who have united behind a shared vision. Together, they are proving that reusable stand-building practices can deliver meaningful, industry-wide change and positive impact.

Better Stands offers a practical, tangible solution that makes sustainable action easier to adopt and helps our industry move from intention to implementation. This award is a powerful encouragement to continue scaling that impact worldwide and implement more features to measure success.”

A collaborative approach to stand construction

The UFI jury recognised Better Stands for its industry-wide collaborative framework addressing single-use stand construction through a practical, tiered system.

Noor Shalghen and Peirui Tan, UFI Sustainable Development Working Group Liaisons, add: “‘Better Stands’ is this year's UFI Sustainable Development Award winner, recognised by the jury for its industry-wide collaborative framework tackling single-use stand construction, a long-standing sustainability challenge in the exhibition industry, through a practical, tiered system.

This year's competition was especially strong, with six recognised as best practices and four finalists, reflecting the growing maturity and ambition of sustainability initiatives across the global exhibition industry.

The jury noted that Better Stands' approach reflects a broader industry shift towards systemic, cross-stakeholder solutions rather than isolated efforts.”

The initiative brings together stakeholders across the exhibition supply chain, including organisers, venues, service providers, exhibitors, assessors and associations, with the aim of making reusable stand-building practices easier to adopt at scale.

The 2026 competition also highlighted the breadth of sustainability activity now taking place across the exhibition industry. UFI named Queen Sirikit National Convention Center, RX Global & Fiera Milano, and Singapore EXPO as finalists, while Bella Center Copenhagen, bematrix, CORFERIAS, Koelnmesse GmbH, MCH Group and PETSHKA were recognised as Best Practices.

From recognition to wider adoption

The UFI Sustainable Development Award is one of the annual UFI Awards, which recognise work across areas including digital innovation, marketing, sustainable development, operations and services, people and culture, and industry partnerships.

Selected projects from the UFI Awards are also added to UFI’s Best Practices Library, providing exhibition professionals with access to examples of initiatives and approaches from across the global industry.

For Better Stands, the award provides recognition for an initiative built around a relatively concrete intervention: reducing the environmental impact of temporary exhibition infrastructure by encouraging reusable stand-building practices. It also gives the programme an opportunity to further develop its measurement capabilities and expand its adoption internationally.

The 2026 UFI Award winners will be formally recognised during the 93rd UFI Global Congress, taking place from 2–5 November 2026 in the Kingdom of Bahrain.
 

Find out more on our upcoming HQ #127: A deeper look at Better Stands, its approach to reusable stand construction and the wider shift towards more measurable, collaborative sustainability in exhibitions will feature in the November issue of Headquarters Magazine.
 

Powered by Meeting Media Company, publisher of Headquarters Magazine (HQ) – a leading international publication based in Brussels, serving the global MICE industry and association community.