Greening the Savour Kilkenny Food Festival

Kilkenny County Council has greened the Savour Kilkenny Food Festival in 2018 and 2019, building on successful previous greening initiatives. This involved working closely with the festival organisers and included:

• The festival signing up to a green charter.
• Developing a green charter for stall holders and asking them to sign up and pledge to minimise waste and reduce water and energy consumption amongst a variety of other environmentally friendly pledges.
• Surveying stallholders on their sustainability practices.
• Providing water refill points for visitors to refill their water bottles – reducing the need for plastic bottled water.
• Providing food waste bins which cater for cooked/raw food and compostable packaging, as well as general waste bins.
• Providing collection points for cardboard.
• Promoting visitors to walk, cycle, or car pool to get to events.
• Hosting environmental information stands at the market on recycling and food waste.

Savour Kilkenny celebrates the produce and food culture surrounding Kilkenny, highlighting local artisan products and the city’s restaurant and café scene, and typically attracts about 40,000 visitors over the October bank holiday weekend.