Frankfurt Book Fair (October 06-10, 2010) is not only one of world's largest book events but also the greenest with its many environmental initiatives.

More than 300,000 visitors and over 7,000 exhibitors congregate each October in Frankfurt, generating not only five days of fun for book lovers near and far, but also tons of garbage. Not to mention the resources used.

Good that Frankfurt Book Fair and Messe Frankfurt, the organization responsible for the fairgrounds, have teamed up to create an environmentally friendly fair. They are especially targeting the following four areas to save resources or to reduce their usage drastically:
- water
- electricity
- heat
- waste management

Water-Saving Measures at Frankfurt Book Fair
Around 7 million liters or 1.85 million gallons of water are used up at every book fair in Frankfurt. That's a whole lot of good, clean drinking water. Following initiatives of previous years, this year's Frankfurt Book Fair will make an effort to use rainwater or recycled water whenever possible, for example for:
- flushing toilets
- watering plants
- supplying water for fountains

In addition, all toilets in restaurants and halls have switched to a need-based flushing system; that means a medium-flush and full-flush option available to users. This measure alone is expected to save 1.6 million liters or over 0.4 million gallons of water at the Fair.

Waste-Reduction Measures at Frankfurt Book Fair
Germany is known for its elaborate recycling system that includes the famous four-compartment trash can, to be found in public places like airports and train stations. The Frankfurt Book Fair, attracting around 300,000 visitors annually, can therefore not be behind when it comes to waste management. Thanks to the collection of separate types of trash – glass, paper, plastic and other trash – FBF's recycling rate is at 80%, with a tendency to even reach 90%.

Waste production at the Fair is down in general: While in 2000, about 867 tonnes of garbage were produced, that figure shrank in 2008 by 16% to 730 tonnes. Of those 730 tonnes of waste, 590 tonnes or 80% were recycled. Some materials like the carpets used for booths, aisles and entrance areas get almost completely reused: Of the 71,000 square meters or 84 square yards of carpeting used at an average fair – enough to cover ten football fields – about 90% is recycled or reused.

Heat-Saving Measures at Frankfurt Book Fair
Whoever has been to Frankfurt in October can confirm that it gets quite chilly in the Main metropolis; so the heating of the exhibition halls and surrounding fair venues is a must. Here are some of the heat-loss reducing measures applied:
- So-called fast-rolling doors open and close faster, therefore preventing less warmth to escape.
- Old, poorly insulted steam pipes have been replaced by new, vacuum-insulated pipes.
- All exhibition halls have been upgraded with smaller, decentralized heating systems.
- The fairground's old steam heating systems have been converted to warm water ones to reduce heat loss during circulation.

Electricity-Saving Measures at Frankfurt Book Fair
All fair halls have been equipped with dimmable, energy-saving lamps and the ventilation system has been upgraded. Since 2009, the roof of Hall 10 is equipped with a photovoltaic plant that can potentially deliver 300 kilowatts of electricity, used for the hall's in-house network. For the first time in 2010, the electricity requirement for all booths will be provided by renewable, local energy sources.

The many Book Fair cafes and restaurants prove that going green is also more stylish: They already serve 90% of the 20,000 sandwiches, 15,000 portions of French fries and 10,000 pizzas consumed at an average Book Fair not on paper and plastic but on porcelain and glass. In addition, gastronomical products supplied by regional producers are preferred as well as recyclable packaging.

Other than being the world's largest book fair, Frankfurt Book Fair attracts visitors because of its environmentally friendly approach and proves that large-scale green initiatives make economic sense as well. All this information and more can be found in the Fair's brochure "Think Global, Act Local".