A Greener Festival Blog #6

The new A Greener Festival Award is unveiled

United Kingdom | by Ben Challis | 01 June 2009

This is the new prototype for our 'Greener Festival' Award, which is given to festivals who can meet our challenging assessment to prove they are engaged in reducing their environmental impact and are moving towards a low carbon future.

The new Award trophy was designed by competition winner Sade Goddard, a sixth form student at Keswick School, Cumbria. Sade won £100 in music download vouchers for her fantastic effort. The runner up was Sarah Kitching. The Award, which was awarded to 32 festivals across the world in 2008 including Bestival, Bonnaroo in the USA, Bluesfest in Australia, Glastonbury, Latitude, Shambala and Waveform, is already attracting entries for 2009 and the new trophy will be made from plastic recycled from crushed CDs and - we love this - discarded wellington boots - which are often abandoned in their thousands at festival sites.

The design is based on the Red Kite, the endangered bird of prey which was recently re-introduced to England and Wales where it has become extinct - the logo is used by A Greener Festival for its Award scheme.

The Greener Festival Award was launched in 2007 and last year 24 UK festivals, 2 European festivals, 2 US festivals and 4 Australian festivals won the Award. We also work closely with Yourope, the European Festivals organisation, who awarded another 20 festivals with their 'Green n Clean' Award. Watch out for these Awards, they show that a Festival is working hard to improve its environmental impact and is doing what it can to fight climate change.