Sustainability was the key theme of Yokohama’s MICE Showcase 2026 as the city intensifies its positioning as an environmentally responsible choice for events.
Organiser Yokohama City Visitors Bureau (YCVB) used the one-day programme to introduce more than 100 people from domestic and international business events-related organisations to the destination’s latest “green” activities via monitor tours, presentations and workshops.
Participants visited an aquaponics system implemented as a form of sustainable agriculture and viewed food waste reduction and waste cooking oil recycling initiatives. They also heard presentations on how Yokohama is “engaging the local economy” to advance sustainable business events: one of the city’s 2030 goals.
Yokohama administers its own sustainable development goals certification system called Y-SDGs, which evaluates applying businesses on 30 criteria across four categories: environmental, social, governance and local. Furthermore, one of the city’s districts, Minato Mirai 21, is a government-designated Decarbonization Leading Area spearheading Japan’s carbon neutrality by 2050.
Officials hope Yokohama’s hosting of the International Horticultural Expo 2027 (also called Green x Expo 2027) from March to September next year will be a further boon to its sustainability credentials. The expo is designed to promote global sustainability, biodiversity and harmony with nature.
“Ahead of the green expo next year, we want to make Yokohama an even more sustainable city,” a YCVB spokesperson told attendees at the showcase’s venue Pacifico Yokohama North.
“There is growing demand for sustainability among event organisers and participants,” she continued, citing a 2025 report by the International Congress and Convention Association and Destination Canada that shows sustainability is “very” or “extremely” important to 66 per cent of associations, up six per cent from 2023.
In response, YCVB has expanded its sustainable offerings for conferences, adding options that include Cyclopolitan eco-taxis (tricycles), disaster prevention training and standup paddleboarding while picking up plastic trash.
