Greening your festival can involve working in some, or all, of the following areas:

• Waste
• Water
• Energy
• Food

Whichever you choose, the same general principles apply – and usually these start with involving the right people. These might vary from the festival organisers or committee, to people on the ground – such as festival staff or your waste contractor.

We have developed a convenient guide to help you create a greener (and greater) event! Please see below for more information.

1. Publicly commit to starting to be green

Get organisers/committee to publicly commit to starting going green, e.g. on your website, via social media, etc.

2. See where you are at, currently

– What areas/activities are relevant to your festival (see overleaf) – see these for possible things you could do
– Are there good things you are already doing to note/build on
– Have you got existing information on how you’ve done previously e.g. waste tonnes from last year

3. Make a plan for this year

– Choose a small number of actions and plan these
– Be realistic – time and resources
– Get a green team going – who will do what
– Think in advance how you will monitor how things go
– Talk to your local authority Environmental Awareness Officer (EAO) about  what you might do and any assistance they could provide

4. Get the word out . . .

– To the wider public: via website & social media, local news/radio, etc.

– To your festival goers:
– – Before the event – website, social media, etc.
– – During the event – announcements, signage, talks

5. Implement your actions

Get organisers/committee to publicly commit to starting going green, e.g. on your website, via social media, etc.

6. Review how it went

– Afterwards, see what worked and what didn’t
– Try and get data back on e.g. waste and recycling
– Feed this into plans for next year