A Sustainable Future

This issue, we welcome back two major events that affect this region – Interlift and Lift City Expo. Their hiatus was long, due primarily to COVID-19, and both were happily restored to their grateful audiences in the last few months.

After a six-month delay, the Interlift expo and congress took place in Augsburg, Germany, in late April. In “Finally, Interlift!” by Angela C. Baldwin, it’s reported the event was anticipated to be smaller, with 350 booths and 10,000 attendees, but it exceeded expectations. In many ways, the gathering of that many people after so long was more welcome than ever, and it was deemed a success, by any measure.

Lift City Expo took place in late July at the Cairo International Convention Center. It was the first exhibition to take place in Egypt after nearly four years, and companies from Egypt, China, Italy and Türkiye participated. Thousands visited the expo and reveled in doing business face to face.

Our focus this month is on Environmental Issues and their effect on vertical transportation (VT). There are so many new words attached to that subject — carbon neutral, sustainable, emissions, fossil-free, recycle and lifecycle, to name a few. The built world is one of the biggest contributors to global emissions: According to the World Green Building Council, the construction and operation of buildings accounts for 36% of global energy use and 39% of energy-related CO₂ emissions. Construction alone generates a quarter of the world’s solid waste. However, we know that elevators and escalators use only 7-10% of a building’s energy, and we have been improving on that for decades. Now we are looking toward sustainability. That means using processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a product’s lifecycle, at every stage, from design, manufacture, installation, operation, maintenance and even demolition to be sure sustainable processes are being used.

It seems almost everyone had something to say about Environmental Issues, so you will find the subject thoroughly covered.

The industry is moving forward with a calendar full of events for the remainder of this year and the whole of 2023. We look forward to seeing you out there.