Made with upcycled Carlsberg kegs – this green congress hall is now Scandinavia’s largest

It's not often that a new congress hall can boast using upcycled beer kegs in their building material. But that is just what the new Bella Arena is all about: sustainability. Sustainable materials, energy efficiency and circularity have been key focus points in building Scandinavia's largest congress center, leading to Bella Arena achieving the international gold certification within sustainability from DGNB.

Just 10 minutes from Copenhagen Airport and closely connected to the city through Bella Center Metro Station, the Bellakvarter area is already a magnet for international events with Bella Center Copenhagen and AC Hotel Bella Sky. Now the area is being expanded with an arena with 14,000 flexible square meters, so that Bella Center can accommodate 30,000 simultaneous guests in the future. The arena thus provides completely new opportunities to host global business and political conferences as well as cultural and sporting events.

The new Bella Arena is connected to the existing Bella Center via a large glass atrium, bringing the Arena, the hotel, and Bella Center together under one roof, with the joint capacity to accommodate events with up to 30,000 participants. Bella Arena also gets its own identities and entrances, so it can host cultural- and sporting events while there are conference events in Bella Center.

In close partnership with BC Hospitality Group's new beverage supplier, Carlsberg, the arena works thoroughly with sustainable approaches. 

“The DGNB certification is proof that it is possible to think sustainability in large buildings. At the same time, the opening marks the start of a strategic partnership with Carlsberg, which has strengthened our focus on sustainability. Carlsberg is not only a supplier of beverages, but an overall sustainability partner with a focus on circularity. For the next many years, we will work together to make guests' experiences more sustainable,” says CEO, Christian Folden-Lund.

Carlsberg's contribution to the arena is based on the brewery's focus on circularity throughout the value chain. The latest innovation is the DraughtMaster-keg that in addition to ensuring better quality and use of the beer will be returned and recycled into new products such as furniture and building materials. In Bella Arena, the upcycled kegs are used for signs and furniture.

“We want to work with all our partners and customers to reduce total resource consumption. That is why we have created a system that ensures that as much as possible is recycled, upcycled and downcycled. Together with BC Hospitality Group, we saw a unique opportunity in Bella Arena to be part of the sustainability journey from the start. It is fantastic that our kegs, which are emptied by our customers, can come back as a new product in the same place,” says CEO of Carlsberg Denmark, Peter Haahr Nielsen.

The International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA) ranked Copenhagen as Europe’s seventh-largest conference city in 2018, a leading position that is expected to be further bolstered by the addition of the Bella Arena as well as the opening of four major new conference hotels in the city in 2021/22, offering a total of 2,078 new business-grade rooms.