With a population of 1.9 million, comparable to world capitals such as Paris, Vienna and Barcelona, and with an area the size of Hong Kong, Sapporo is Japan’s fifth largest metropolis, over 60% of which is covered by greenery and 6 meters of snow for the period of 130 days a year. Apart from its compact structure, environmentally-friendly elements can be found all around Sapporo. There is a subway that boasts noise-reducing rubber tires, or Porocle, a bicycle sharing system. One of the landmarks of Sapporo, the Moerenuma Park for example, was built on a waste landfill, while the park’s signature and one of the city’s unique venues, the Glass Pyramid, uses snow for its air conditioning, another unique feature that has also been adopted by the New Chitose Airport. The former host of Asia’s first winter Olympics has also been a longtime front-runner of local production - local consumption, with an overwhelming food sufficiency rate of 208%, which is five times more of Japan’s average, giving the destination its reputation and brand value as Japan’s gourmet capital, not to mention its namesake beer.

As an environmentally-conscious destination, here at Sapporo Convention Bureau we work broadly with several initiatives to integrate a sustainability perspective in the business events operations. Recommend programs and efforts to help reduce the environmental impact of an event; offer pragmatic means to encourage action through services such as carbon offsetting; or help monitor change and communicate efficiently on the impact of an event in connection with SDGs.