Saved to your shortlist
Find everything you've saved — events, speakers, and brands — in the shortlist icon at the top right, anytime.
Your shortlist is stored in your browser, so it'll disappear if you clear your cookies.
IFA for all. Sustainability and inclusion at IFA Berlin
Innovation for all has always been more than a tagline. It's the standard we want IFA to be measured against.
An event that shows the future of technology has to work for everyone. Otherwise, it isn't showing the future. Here's what we're doing about that, honestly and concretely, including what's still open.
Why we do this
Technology is only finished when everyone can use it. Captions were developed for deaf audiences, and today half the internet watches video with them. Audiobooks began as a format for blind readers. Voice control has its roots in assistive technology. What gets built for a few often becomes a better product for everyone.
Worldwide, 1.3 billion people live with a significant disability. That's one in six of us, including many disabilities you can't see. For an industry that equips the daily lives of billions, this is not a niche. It's the market. And it's where the next good ideas come from.
Research links diverse teams to stronger innovation: a BCG study of companies across Germany, Austria and Switzerland found that those with above-average management diversity earned a markedly higher share of their revenue from new products and services.
Innovation for all means everyone: our team, our exhibitors, our guests and our partners. Gender, identity, age, background, religion, language, disability, neurodiversity: none of it should be a barrier to experiencing what technology can do. That's the promise we hold ourselves to, on site and digitally. Some of it is in place. Some arrives with IFA 2026. Some we're still working on. All of it is here.
Accessibility and inclusion
An event that's open to everyone
Nobody should miss the stage programme because they wear a hearing aid. Nobody should have to push through the noise with nowhere to go. And nobody should pay twice because they need someone with them. That's the standard we hold the event to, set with people and organisations who know this better than we do.
The same thinking is on the show floor: hearing aids that connect to everything, interfaces you control with your eyes, homes that adapt to the people in them. We hold the event to the standard of the products it shows.
Here is what's already in place:
Accessible venue:
Step-free access, lifts and accessible facilities in all halls, together with our venue partner Messe Berlin.
Visible for diversity:
IFA Berlin takes part in Berlin's CSD and the House of Pride. All year round, not just in September.
Nursing Room:
A calm, equipped space for nursing and feeding.
Prayer Room:
A space for prayer and quiet moments, open to all faiths.
Free entry for companions:
If you need an assistant or companion, simply register them with your ticket. The companion ticket is free on our private visitor ticket page.
Guided tours:
Guided tours in easy language, together with Lebenshilfe.
Inclusive reporter team:
An inclusive reporter team covering IFA 2026 from its own perspective.
New for IFA 2026
Quiet Rooms:
Calm retreat spaces for anyone who needs a break from noise, light and crowds. Locations marked on the hall map. Front side of hall 6.2.
The programme in your language:
The IFA app shows the full programme in English and German, and opens automatically in whichever language your device is set to.
Live translation on stage:
Selected stage sessions are translated live, so language isn't what decides whether you can follow the programme.
Tickets for good:
Free and reduced tickets for people working in care, health and social professions, in partnership with Tickets for Good. Eligible people can register for Tickets for Good and redeem the ticket offers on their platform.
Awareness training:
Awareness training with Sozialhelden: The team behind IFA learns from those who experience barriers every day, with training sessions and checklists, including for exhibitors.
Guided tours for blind and visually impaired visitors:
Guided tours for blind and partially sighted visitors, together with ABSV, Berlin's association for blind and partially sighted people.
Charta der Vielfalt:
IFA Management is joining Germany's Diversity Charter, committing to a working and event environment free of prejudice.
Awareness Team:
Our Awareness Team is on site throughout IFA Berlin, in purple vests.
They offer confidential, uncomplicated support if you feel unsafe, uncomfortable or overwhelmed, or if you experience discrimination.
Here's how to reach them:
Awareness Space at Marshall House
Anywhere on site, look for the purple vests
Awareness Hotline: +49 177 5650874
They can also bring in security or the medical team for you.
Service at a glance
- Register a companion
- Quiet Rooms and accessible routes on the hall map
- Accessible Exhibiting Guide by Sozialhelden e.V.
Practical guidance for exhibitors on making booth design, product presentations, communication and digital touchpoints more accessible. - Accessibility & EAA Masterclass by Sozialhelden e.V.
Interactive session for exhibitors on accessibility, the European Accessibility Act / BFSG and practical consumer-tech use cases. Held onsite at IFA.
Resources and circularity
Our industry's biggest homework
The world generated 62 million tonnes of e-waste in 2022, heading for 82 million tonnes by 2030. Only about a fifth of it is verifiably collected and recycled. (Global E-Waste Monitor 2024) That's the bill our own industry must settle. IFA is where the solutions go on show, so we start with the event itself.
Build what comes back: Stages and stand systems are planned modularly and reused rather than discarded.
- Carpet that comes back: All aisles in the halls are laid with carpet tiles that are reused year after year, not replaced after every show. In the iZone we use Rewind carpet. And in two areas, CityCube Level B and the Reseller Park, we skip carpeting altogether.
- Merchandise from recyclate: Lanyards made of rPET, passholders and kids' wristbands from recycled material.
- Waste becomes raw material: Separated collection and recovery across the venue, together with ALBA.
- Clear rules for everyone: The 5R principle (rethink, refuse, reduce, repurpose, recycle) is part of our exhibitor guidelines.
For exhibitors: If you want to build more sustainably, our guidelines offer concrete approaches, from materials to dismantling.
Energy and climate
Technology changes how we live. An event can do the same.
Berlin has committed to cutting its CO2 emissions by at least 60 percent against 1990 levels by 2030. IFA, the State of Berlin and Messe Berlin are working together to bring the show's emissions down with it. There's also a commitment that runs across the whole group: as part of Clarion Events, IFA is signed up to Net Zero Carbon Events, an initiative across the events industry. Clarion has committed to halving emissions by 2030 and reaching net zero by 2045. For IFA, that means measuring the show's carbon footprint and working with our venues and suppliers on concrete reductions.
- Certified green electricity: The venue runs on 100 percent certified green electricity, part of an energy concept Messe Berlin is building around regenerative energy and high-efficiency combined heat and power.
- A solar roof in the making: Berlin's largest solar roof system, the third largest in Germany, is currently being built across the hall rooftops at Messe Berlin.
- Certified energy management: The venue is ISO 50001 certified.
- Arrive by rail: Reduced rail tickets to IFA. Attractive prices from just EUR 16.19, additional BahnCard discount possible. Book your rail ticket
- If you have to fly: Long-haul guests can offset their flights through Lufthansa Group's offsetting programme.
- Stages that need less: Stage design is shifting to reuse and lower energy demand.
And the momentum is real: in 2026, around 2.2 trillion US dollars are going into clean energy technologies worldwide, almost twice the amount going to fossil fuels. Green tech is the growth market our exhibitors bring to Berlin every year.
Catering and operations
Small choices, at scale
An event this size serves tens of thousands of meals. What we do with them is a design decision like any other.
- Reusable where we can, honestly about the rest: Capital Catering, Messe Berlin's own catering company, works with reusable tableware only. Outside, the food trucks and some outlets still run on disposables. That's the next thing on our list, starting with reusable coffee cups.
- Less packaging, fewer bottles: Individually pre-packed portions are kept to a minimum, and water dispensers replace bottled water where we can put them.
- Kitchens that use less: Every pass-through dishwasher runs on reverse osmosis to cut water consumption, and new kitchen equipment is chosen for water and energy efficiency.
- Regional and organic on request: Seasonal local produce and organic ingredients are available for stands and events, and regional suppliers come first where the supply chain allows.
- Nothing good gets binned: Leftover food goes to the Berliner Tafel food bank.
Voices
"For us, it's a clear signal that the inclusive guided tours are a fixed part of the IFA programme and that ABSV was closely involved in planning them. It means blind and partially sighted people can find out about new products first-hand, particularly accessible home appliances, AI-based orientation and mobility aids, and high-quality headphones."
Dr Thomas Krämer, Managing Director, ABSV
Our partners
Sozialhelden
Made accessibility visible with projects like Wheelmap. They train our team and give us checklists that turn intentions into decisions, for our own planning and for exhibitor stands. Sozialheld*innen - Nichts ohne uns!
ABSV
Berlin's self-advocacy organisation for blind and partially sighted people. At a tech event, almost everything runs through the eyes. So together with ABSV we're developing guided tours that work without sight.
Lebenshilfe e.V.
One of Germany's largest organisations for people with learning disabilities, and a leading authority on easy language. Together we're creating tours where understanding the show doesn't depend on how you read.
Charta der Vielfalt
Germany's employer initiative for diversity at work. Signing it turns our commitment into a public standard we can be held to.
Cradle to Cradle NGO
Partner initiative around circular economy in consumer electronics, including stage content at IFA, a donation link on the IFA website, a stand space at IFA Next, and IFA acting as platform partner for C2C NGO’s new Consumer Electronics Initiative.
ALBA
One of Germany's established recycling companies. Together we separate and recover materials across the venue, so they re-enter the cycle instead of being lost.
Berliner Tafel
Berlin's largest food bank. Our catering surplus goes to them, so good food from a show day reaches people instead of a bin.
Tickets for Good
A social enterprise opening up event access for people in care, health and social professions. Through them we offer free and reduced IFA tickets to the workforce that supports everyone else.
Messe Berlin
Our venue partner, operating the grounds and much of the infrastructure. The green electricity, the solar installation and the ISO 50001 energy management are theirs as much as ours.
What we're still working on
This page is not a final report. Not every route is equally easy yet, not every format accessible to everyone, and not every number where we want it to be. We publish what stands and add what follows.
The future shows up from 4 to 8 September 2026 at Messe Berlin. And it's there for everyone.
The future shows up from 4 to 8 September 2026 at Messe Berlin. And it's there for everyone.