Green Lights: How Sustainability Took Center Stage at CES 2023

Brands engage attendees in innovative products and global mission statements amid botanical-rich environments

Exploring the exhibit halls at CES 2023, held Jan. 5-8 in Las Vegas, greenery was a notable design element. From raised garden beds and potted plants to grass carpeting and elaborate floor-to-ceiling greenery walls, exhibitors enhanced their booths with organic textures, colors and lighting. While these natural features created inviting environments for attendees, they also underscored brands’ sustainability messaging, eco-friendly products and solutions, and commitments to eco-conscious practices both on-site and back at HQ.

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Environmental Impact Initiatives

In a large, wide-open booth space at the Las Vegas Convention Center, Panasonic built a “smart, ecological world” with four areas—Park, Town, Mobility and Home—each illustrating solutions for more sustainable lifestyles. The centerpiece of the exhibit was the Perovskite Solar Tree, a concept tree composed entirely of perovskite solar cells that generate renewable energy. With limited printed signage, large-scale projection screens and TVs presented information through rotating slides and videos.

Attendees scanned QR codes to learn about Panasonic’s Green Impact initiative to reduce CO₂ emissions by more than 300 million tons by 2050. This was also their key to entering a virtual 360-degree replica of Panasonic’s booth space that expanded into an interactive tour of innovations for each of its four areas. Continuing post-CES 2023, Panasonic will plant a tree, in partnership with One Tree Planted, for every participant who completes the Green Impact Digital Experience and shares the challenge on social channels: “Help us plant a forest.”

 

Spotlight on the Circularity of Electronics

At an event like CES, where countless new tech products are unveiled, the circular economy model comes to mind. What happens to old devices once new ones enter the market? Samsung’s “Everyday Sustainability” exhibit highlighted the brand’s efforts to improve the resource circularity of electronics over a product’s entire lifecycle, from raw material sourcing to disposal and recycling. Attendees could pick up cubes representing each stage and place them on a special pad that then brought up corresponding data and graphs on a screen. LG’s “Better Life for All” zone presented a freestanding “Sustainable Cycle” circular sculpture outlining six steps, such as R&D, service, collection and recycling.

 

Eco-friendly Builds and Operations

Sustainability played a large role in the build and operation of Reddit’s “Future Tellers” activation at the Wynn Las Vegas, including eliminating extra plastic packaging, using QR codes instead of paper handouts, serving water in reusable glassware and offering biodegradable tea bags as attendee giveaways. Reddit donated the space’s custom walls to Habitat for Humanity post-event, and ceiling tiles from its meeting rooms were biodegradable and made from plant-based materials. Similarly, Sony brought booth panels to its exhibit at the convention center that were produced with its own company-developed “Original Blended Material,” an environmentally conscious paper component made from bamboo, sugar cane and post-consumer recycled paper.

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Have sustainability-focused story ideas, tips or projects? Send them to EM’s Managing Editor Juanita Chavarro Arias at [email protected].

 

This story appeared in the Spring 2023 issue