Exterior image of the International Convention Centre Sydney. Credit: ICC Sydney.
The International Convention Centre Sydney, known as ICC Sydney, is a venue spanning across three buildings: its Convention Centre, Exhibition Centre and TikTok Entertainment Centre, attracting over 1 million visitors per year. ICC Sydney is located in the Darling Harbour precinct, on Gadigal Country and is operated by Legends Global in partnership with the Darling Harbour Live consortium. Over the past several years, ICC Sydney has been working on strategies to reduce its carbon emissions by introducing a range of sustainability initiatives, including participating in our Green Venue Certification program, which rewards and celebrates venues that demonstrate a commitment towards environmental action and values.
Energy
Making use of the venue's large size, ICC Sydney generates renewable energy through its 520kW solar power array and renewable energy procurement delivered together with its Darling Harbour Live partners. The venue powers approximately 24% of operations through renewable energy - 4% from solar and 20% from green energy procurement. A couple of years ago they did an internal energy review where they discovered several opportunities for improvement. Since then, in collaboration with consortium partners, a venue-wide lighting upgrade project has been delivered, converting halogen and fluorescent lighting fixtures to energy-efficient LEDs throughout the venue and its carparks. The team also takes simple energy-saving measures such as drawing the blinds across northern-facing windows in summer and turning off lights and air conditioning in areas that are not in use. Through these measures, they’ve been able to save 13% of their annual energy consumption in FY25/26 (compared to the baseline year FY18/19).
Microherb Farm
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One of the more public-facing sustainability initiatives is their hydroponic microherb farm. The idea came from their executive chef and culinary team who were procuring microherbs from producers many kilometres away. They discovered Greenspace, a company that allows them to grow some of their own herbs onsite with minimal energy and water usage - up to 95% less water than traditional farming methods. Greenspace also convert underutilised spaces in the Sydney CBD into microherb production farms, where they deliver the herbs to nearby businesses within a 2km delivery radius - sometimes by foot and trolley. This means ICC Sydney has significantly reduced carbon emissions from microherb transportation, reduced food waste, and have a vibrant pop of green in their corporate space. |
Chemical Reduction
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Through ICC Sydney's commitment to minimising pollution, sustainable resource use, and compliance with environmental requirements, they have successfully transitioned to an approximately 98% chemical-free cleaning system across the entire venue. Throughout the venue, they use eWater made from electrolysed salt water, and Tersano, made from ionised water. These onsite units allow staff to refill cleaning containers and bottles, helping to reduce chemical use and plastic waste. They have found the combined use of these cleaning chemical alternatives to be a highly cost-effective solution, where 5kg of electrolysed salt produces 10,000 litres of eWater solution, and one Tersano cartridge lasts between 3-6 months. |
In-House Fabric Upcycling
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The venue runs a comprehensive in-house fabric recovery and reuse program, turning end-of-life uniforms, curtains, tablecloths and napkins into an array of second-life items including chefs caps, refurbished uniforms, aprons, bin covers, signage and more. One of the first projects the team worked on, which has been highly successful, is a reusable wet laundry bag made out of upcycled rain jackets, replacing plastic laundry bags. The uniform team is always finding creative ways to repair and reuse to increase the lifespan of fabrics and minimise textile waste going to landfill. In 2025, the team repurposed approximately 11,200 sqm of fabric - the equivalent of CommBank Stadium’s ground. |
Following a carbon audit, they discovered that dry cleaning and laundry were amongst their top 10 list of contributions to Scope 3 carbon emissions, due to the transportation of offsite cleaning and the use of dry cleaning chemicals and water. They decided to make a change and invest in the purchase of a few washing machines. That investment has since paid for itself in under six months and laundry is no longer amongst their top 10 carbon emissions.
Waste
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Waste management and reduction is a large focus for ICC Sydney. The venue has adopted a refuse, reduce, reuse, recycle and recover methodology, separation of up to 22 waste streams, client education tools, clear signage, client support with waste management planning, assistance during bump in and bump out, post event reporting, and more. In FY 25/26, they maintained a total of 72% waste diversion from landfill – just shy of their 75% target. One piece of technology they’ve implemented for events requiring high-volume food catering (such as gala dinners) is Winnow - an AI camera system that helps measure, track and act on food waste. It is a three-click process that photographs the food going into the bin, matches it to a menu item, and documents the weight and dollar value of that waste. The results give clear metrics for post-event reporting, and helps shape their menu and catering options to minimise food waste and reduce costs. As part of their replenishment model for catering services, they hold food in fridges until it is needed for service, keeping the food items safer for longer. If there is surplus food at the end of the event, the food in the fridge is safe to donate to charities such as OzHarvest. It’s one of their ways to reduce food waste and give back to communities in need. Last year, in collaboration with exhibition and convention clients, they donated over 5000 Kg/L of food and beverage. |
In their back-of-house waste sorting area, there is a simple weight measurement scale that measures the weight of bins up to 660kg. Each bin has a QR code on it that can be linked to an event and provide clear waste metrics. Post-event, they can report back to an event manager or client on which waste streams were activated and how much waste was produced. This is helpful for a venue like ICC Sydney that hosts multiple events in one day.
Single-Use vs Reusable Cups
One of the challenges that the venue faces is transitioning away from single-use cups and adopting reusables. Although the cups are certified as home or industrially compostable, in NSW they can’t be processed in organic or recycling waste streams and must be disposed of in landfill. The venue uses reusable cups and glassware wherever practical such as lounge spaces (in TikTok Entertainment Centre), but finds a reusable system challenging to implement effectively in general admission spaces where drinks need to be decanted at a fast-paced and high-volume rate.
ICC Sydney, however, are up to the challenge, constantly trying to find solutions to tackle the issue. Over the next few months, they’re trialling Draft Top across six events. Draft Top is a bar tool that lifts the tops off of canned beverages, removing the need to decant into single-use cups, eliminating the water needed to wash reusable cups, and still being able to recycle the aluminium cans at end-of-use.
Advice For Other Venues
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Sustainability isn’t a one-person job or responsibility. It takes the entire team and the collaboration of different teams’ knowledge, skills, creativity and leadership to make meaningful change. Of course it is beneficial to have a dedicated role, but it is also powerful to build a culture of sustainability throughout the entire company ecosystem and include everyone in the sustainability journey. One idea for companies or venues to get started is to set one or two achievable sustainability-related KPIs for the team to achieve in the year, alongside their usual business operation KPIs. |
Another piece of advice that ICC Sydney has for other venues is to start by looking for easy, no-to-low-cost wins. The majority of their sustainability initiatives are low-cost, and where there were higher upfront costs involved, they were able to quickly demonstrate a return on investment (ROI), typically within the financial year. In short, don’t be scared of the numbers, start where it’s free, and reinvest that ROI into other sustainability initiatives.
If you’d like to learn more about our Green Venue programs or become a Green Certified Venue like ICC Sydney, click here or email us.
Case study by Bridget Heazlewood (Green Music Australia) and Jess Zickar (ICC Sydney).
Thank you to our Green Venue Program partners:
