The claim
The Celtic Collection, the hotel group that includes the Celtic Manor Resort, announced in June 2026 that it had achieved ISO 14001 certification across all its hotels and the International Convention Centre Wales. The announcement describes ISO 14001 as an independently audited system and describes A Cube TIC as the accrediting body. It also mentions the group’s earlier Green Dragon Level 4 standard and a commitment to net zero by 2050.
For anyone shortlisting ICC Wales, the question is what that certificate actually tells you.
What ISO 14001 is
ISO says ISO 14001 sets out the criteria for an environmental management system and is the only standard in its ISO 14000 family that an organisation can be certified to. The edition ISO currently lists is ISO 14001:2026, and ISO’s 2024 survey counted more than 670,000 certifications worldwide.
In practice, certification is evidence that an organisation has a system for identifying its environmental impacts, setting objectives, controlling its operations and improving over time, and that an external auditor has checked that system. It is a meaningful signal of governance. What it does not do, by itself, is tell you the carbon footprint of your room hire, how much of the food from your dinner will be wasted, or whether the organisation’s targets are ambitious.
Other claims you will meet
Venues and agencies cite a range of schemes and targets, and they are not interchangeable:
- Company-wide certifications. The Business Design Centre and DRPG both describe themselves as B Corp certified. That is a different scheme with a different scope from an environmental management system.
- Ratings. C2events reports a Silver medal from EcoVadis and says it tracks and benchmarks event carbon emissions through its own programme.
- Targets. Liverpool Experience Campus states an ambition of net zero by 2030; the Business Design Centre says it has a plan to reach net zero before 2030; the Celtic Collection commits to 2050. A target date is a commitment, not a result, and the boundary of what is counted can differ.
Turning a claim into a brief
- Ask for the certificate itself: its scope, the sites covered, the certification body and the expiry date.
- Ask what data the venue can give you for your event, such as energy use, waste by stream and catering information, and how each is measured.
- Separate targets from achieved results in anything you publish about the event.
- Remember what the venue does not control. Delegate travel, freight and your own suppliers sit outside a venue’s management system, and are often where an organiser has the most influence.
Our view
An ISO 14001 certificate is worth having on the shortlist evidence, and ICC Wales’s makes it easier to ask for the data behind its claims. Treat it as the start of the sustainability conversation, not the end of it. For the ICC Wales space itself, see our desk assessment of the Main Hall and the ICC Wales profile.
Companies and venues in this story
- Celtic Manor ResortYou can run a 1,200-seat theatre plenary, a 900-guest dinner and a 1,231 m² exhibition hall on one estate off junction 24 of the M4, with 332 bedrooms in the resort hotel.
- Business Design CentreYou get a 1,500-capacity hall, a 500-seat Auditorium and nine smaller rooms under one roof in Islington, a 4 minute walk from Angel and outside the Congestion Charge zone.
- DRPGYou can keep event management, staging, film and digital content with one ISO 20121 certified group, whose work includes BT Consumer Live for a live audience of 4,500.
- C2eventsYou get one agency and one project lead for healthcare and pharmaceutical meetings abroad, covering registration, travel, venues and delegates, from a Wakefield team the agency says ran events in 20 countries in 12 months.
- Liverpool Experience CampusRun a plenary, an 8,100 m² exhibition and breakouts on one Liverpool waterfront campus, with 21 meeting rooms, a 1,450-space car park and an integrated Pullman hotel.
- ICC WalesYou can run a 1,500-seat plenary, an exhibition on 4,000 m² of pillar-free floor and breakouts in ten spaces under one roof, just off Junction 24 of the M4 with over 2,000 parking spaces.
Sources
- ICC Wales: Celtic Collection achieves ISO 14001 across all hotels and ICC Wales
- ISO: ISO 14000 family, environmental management
- Business Design Centre (B Corp and net-zero statements)
- Liverpool Experience Campus: sixth consecutive Labour Party Conference (net zero by 2030 ambition)
- DRPG group overview (B Corp statement)
- C2events services (EcoVadis statement)
Sources checked on 19 October 2026. We have not seen the certificates themselves; the claims are as published by each organisation.
