Green economy: Italy at the forefront for circularity and renewables.
Italian Exhibition Group’s Ecomondo and Key Energy shows closed their doors on November 11 with +41% in total attendance compared to 2021 (and +15% over the record edition of 2019), also recording double foreign attendance (from 90 countries) thanks to the internationalization policy launched by IEG in recent years which attracts new and numerous world visitors to Rimini in the name qualitative and numerical excellence.
The green trajectory of the future of our country’s economy emerges loud and clear from the two events, which, to date, have achieved a gross media coverage of close to 550 million Italy-Foreign contacts. This is confirmed by both the study on the “New ecological transition challenges for Italian companies” presented at the 11th edition of the States General of the Green Economy and promoted by the National Council for the Green Economy, at the opening of Ecomondo, and the study entitled “Disruptive energy scenarios for Italy” for renewable energy supply chains, presented at the opening of Key Energy.
Ecomondo and Key Energy represent an authentic “system”, a community, that owes its uniqueness to the virtuous mix of business and exhibition, institutional relations of the highest level, from the European Commission through to the Ministry for the Environment and Energy Security, to the Foundation for Sustainable Development and supply chain consortia and a full and varied conference program that provides visitors and exhibitors with a compass for finding the right direction among the ongoing changes and a constant stimulus for public decision-makers to continue along the path of sustainability.
With 86% of Italian companies judging the level of attention to ecological transition as high or good, and with an estimated EUR 24 billion in benefits for consumers between now and 2030 in the wake of the development of renewables, in the near future, the Italian economy looks set to turn green.
Start-ups and exhibiting companies brought hundreds of stories of innovation to Rimini Expo Centre. While the global action aspect of the two shows saw 80 international associations operating in the green economy with which the shows have signed cooperation agreements. Commitment to promoting “blue growth” in the Mediterranean area was seen to be constant with case histories of international cooperation projects for the protection of the marine ecosystem and the fight against climate change in the area and with the Africa Green Growth project, the energy autonomy of African countries as now part of the social sustainability agenda.
The state of the art of the market was demonstrated by the 1,400 exhibitor brands filling the 130,000 square meters at this 25th edition of Ecomondo and 15th of Key Energy, gathering together the best of Made in Italy and international technologies for the pillars of the green economy: the circular bio-economy, waste and waste-water management and valorization, soil and sea regeneration, sustainable blue growth and hydrogeological risk, together with solutions and technologies for the solar energy sector, photovoltaics and storage systems, onshore and offshore wind energy, energy efficiency in industry and buildings and a focus on sustainable cities and electric mobility.
Supply chains that attracted 600 foreign buyers to Rimini Expo Centre thanks to the synergy with the ITA- Italian Trade Agency and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs which generated 2,537 business matchings on the digital platform.
While exhibitor profiles on the GreenTechInsights B2B platform received over 270,000 viewings by professional operators.
160 institutional events were organized by Ecomondo and Key Energy’s two scientific committees, chaired respectively by Fabio Fava from Bologna University and Gianni Silvestrini, Director of Kyoto Club Italia.
“At the beginning, Ecomondo took up a mere 3,000 square meters of exhibition space,” said Environment and Energy Security Minister, Gilberto Pichetto Fratin, in his speech today at the Rimini show. “After 25 years, this number is 40 times bigger and has reached 130,000. Numbers that give an idea of the opportunities to be seized both for the future and for the technologies that allow us to look at a different kind of energy production.”
Ecomondo will be back in Rimini from 7th to 10th November 2023, preceded, from 22nd to 24th March 2023, by the first edition of K.EY The Renewable Energy Expo (the KEY ENERGY spin-off that will become autonomous with double the space).