Britain's greenest festivals

92 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC GREEN | SUMMER 2010

PERFORMANCEREVIEW

Summertime… and Britain’s leafy depths

are awash with festivals. Daisy Dumas

!nds out how the organisers are

tackling their carbon footprint

[ intelligencearts ]

WWW.GREENNATGEO.CO.UK | 93

We’re a nation of festi-val-goers. With more than 500 festivals this

year, the UK’s appetite for bands, cider and dubious hygiene stan-dards appears insatiable.

Blissful, liberating and muddy as they remain, countryside festi-vals have come a long way since their heady, hippy roots. Gone are free milk (Glastonbury, 1970), and free love (Isle of Wight Festival, 1968), and here to stay are corpo-rate behemoths, 12-pint pouring machines and glam-camping.

It’s no surprise that 100,000 people in a !eld represent an energy-hungry, waste-producing, lorry-dependent, car-driving, beer-swilling, cheap-tent-buying nightmare of an ecological sce-nario. Environmental cost is the price we pay for the unbridled optimism and happy-go-lucky release that festivals embody.

Or so it seemed. While Ben Challis of A Greener Festival believes “a green festival is one that doesn’t take place”, he is part of a wave of powerful eco-thinking that is doing its best to clean up the act. “Most festivals are trying to engage in some sort of environmental practice,” says Challis, who has seen entries to A Greener Festival Awards rise

Glastonbury’s main stage, inspired by the Great Pyramid of Giza, EgyptJA

SON

BRY

AN

T

NATG_0310_Meow:Layout 1 30/03/2010 17:20 Page 1


Moving towards a greener festival: solar power and reducing on-site waste are steps in the right direction


threefold in three years. “Not all festivals can do everything on our checklist, but it helps to have targets to aim for.”

Co-founder of Sunrise Celebra-tion, Daniel Hurring, is ahead of most. “We’re always trying to be innovative,” he tells me. As well as selling only organic and local food, creatively pushing low carbon transport and using only renewables or biofuel, they were the !rst to use compost loos. But it’s the Transition Movement that really de!nes Sunrise. “Festivals are ultimately communities. They suffer the same issues that wider society faces, albeit a microcos-mic version. We deal with ideas of community resilience to mini-mise our impact and contribute to the local economy.” Their message seems to be spread-ing – Radio 1 recently contacted Hurring for advice on how to ‘transition-up’ its events.

Public transport is often in-centivised and it pays to recycle. The Latitude festival charges for reusable cups and Croissant Neuf Summer Party – ‘Greenest Festival’ winner in the UK Festi-val Awards 2009 – is run entirely on solar and wind power.

Waveform, diminutive though it may be, has high hopes – and

strict controls. Environmental manager Aylin McNamara ex-plains that “traders will upgrade to compostable cups so that they can attend, then they’ll convert to greener practices. People can’t help being green – just by being there, they are greener than if they were at home”.

She raises an interesting point. Festivals are, arguably, low carbon. “Seventy-!ve thousand people living an alternative lifestyle is an advantage,” says Alison Tickell of campaign group Julie’s Bicycle, “but it’s probably still too much carbon.”

Happily, size isn’t a barrier to progress. Scotland’s T in the Park, at more than 85,000 people, became the largest carbon neutral festival in the world in 2006 and being based on a Site of Special Scienti!c Interest limits organisers to leaving the site exactly as they found it – mud aside. Bestival and the revived Isle of Wight Festival score well, boosted by the need to take

“ FESTIVALS ARE LOW CARBON. SEVENTY-FIVE THOUSAND PEOPLE LIVING AN ALTERNATIVE LIFESTYLE IS AN ADVANTAGE ”

FEST

IVA

LAN

NU

AL.

COM

; A G

REEN

ER F

ESTI

VAL/

BEN

CH

ALL

IS; C

AM

ILLA

MO

RRIS



As well as music and mud, green ideas have always been part of Glastonbury (top) according to co-organiser Emily Eavis (above)

“ SUPPORTING GREENPEACE, OXFAM AND WATERAID, GLASTONBURY IS A MONUMENT TO GREEN THINKING, WITH VARYING SUCCESS ”

public transport to the island (though a dozen brave swimmers got to Bestival under their own steam in 2009).

For its 40th anniversary at the end of June, Glastonbury is pulling out all the stops. The undisputed festival champion commands crowds of up to 177,550, who are fed, watered and entertained by an almost entirely temporary infrastruc-ture. A tented city appears, stays

for !ve extraordinary days, and disappears two weeks later.

“The Festival has been cham-pioning green ideas since day one,” says co-organiser Emily Eavis, whose father Michael started the Festival in 1970. “We never assume we’re in the clear.” Staunchly supporting Green-peace, Oxfam and WaterAid, ‘the Festival’ is a monument to green thinking, with varying success.

Lucy Brooking-Clark, Glaston-bury’s environmental manager, faces quite a task. “It’s all about trial and error – things don’t necessarily run smoothly – but there’s no indulgence or

recklessness.” By siphoning cash into local systems and a new on-site reservoir, the Festival is looking greener than ever.

The Pyramid stage is powered by 1,500m2 of new solar panels, while on-stage charm offensives have changed behaviour, most signi!cantly reducing a penchant for peeing in the bushes after the collective call of nature infa-mously gave rise to dangerous water ammonia levels in 2003.

As a working farm, the Glas-tonbury site is kept immaculate through grim determination – and ingenuity. “Dad invented a giant roll magnet – it’s so strong it sucks all the metal up into a big truck,” explains Eavis. “Everyone was like ‘Cor blimey! Who’d have thought he’d come up with that?’”

Audience travel and waste stubbornly remain Glastonbury’s biggest headaches, however. It is not alone. Research by Julie’s Bicycle shows that, at 68%, audi-ence travel’s portion of all festi-val CO2 emissions is by far the biggest and hardest to control. Waste, from fencing to chip fat, is a close second. Despite efforts by Glastonbury’s 2,000-strong ‘recycling community’ – nearly half of its waste was recycled FE

STIV

ALA

NN

UA

L.CO

M; J

ASO

N B

RYA

NT

98 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC GREEN | SUMMER 2010


last year – a whopping 936.28 tonnes headed to land!ll.

There’s a long way to go. Still, it’s a far cry from 20 years ago, Tickell tells me. “You’d leave and there’d be scenes of Armageddon – there’s been a dramatic shift. The green ticket is becoming the brand ticket.”

Traders, from Bell Tent UK to Loose Tea Tent, agree. So too do the statistics: people are more likely to buy a ticket now be-cause of green credentials. Even bands, most notably Radiohead, are choosing gigs on an eco basis. According to green record label Archangel’s Bruce Elliot-Smith, “Being eco has seeped into normal life”.

Ironically, festival life is any-thing but normal. “People are in tents, part of a special com-munity and living cooperatively, so it’s not an issue not having access to mod-cons and luxury,” says Tickell. “Green living is part of what they are.”

And while some urban festivals are low carbon because of their infrastructure links, nothing sup-ports this ethos as symbiotically as the countryside itself.

As Sophie Rivett-Carnac, an avid festival-goer, says, “Festivals are a celebration of the outdoors

– nature and the arts combin-ing. Environmental awareness is given a burst of creativity.”

Nurturing the transformative power of music and art combined with nature, festivals can strike a powerful chord. “It’s not about getting up on stage and shout-ing at people to turn lights off,” argues Tickell. “Festivals have a capacity to engage.” The over-whelming message is that the public, too, have responsibility.

It’s a great Glastonbury tradi-tion to watch the sun seep over the Somerset hills at the break of dawn. The simplicity of soak-ing up a moment with friends is what festivals, and putting the earth !rst, are about.

As Waveform’s McNamara puts it, laying the foundations of green thinking “is about appreci-ating a sunrise”.

How we can help

energysavingtrust.org.uk

More summer festivals: page 116

BRITAIN’S GREENEST FESTIVALSWaveform waveformfestival.com

Sunrise Celebration sunrisecelebration.com

Sunrise Offgrid sunrise-offgrid.co.uk

Isle of Wight Festival isleofwightfestival.com

Bestival bestival.net

Big Tent bigtentfestival.co.uk

Workhouse workhousefestival.co.uk

Croissant Neuf Summer Party partyneuf.co.uk/10

Useful sitesagreenerfestival.comjuliesbicycle.combelltent.co.ukfestivalawards.com

above

Britain's greenest festivals

Documents

Transcript of Britain's greenest festivals