A Greener Festival Blog #13

The Greener Festival Award winners are announced

by Ben Challis | 19 October 2009

The Greener Festival Award winners are announced...

The final list of Greener Festival Award winners has been announced for 2009 with another twenty festivals picking up the prestigious Greener Festival gong, adding to the seventeen which were announced in July, midway through the Festival season in the UK. The newly announced awards go to festivals including Bestival, The City of London Festival, the Cambridge Folk Festival, Szeged in Hungary, Oya in Norway and the Croissant Neuf Summer Party. These Festivals join festivals such as Glastonbury, Download, Firegathering, T-in-the-Park and The Isle of Wight festival who had already picked up the coveted award alongside five Australian Festivals.

We are dead chuffed at AGreenerFestival.com with the number of outstanding festivals in 2009 with twelve festivals being awarded very high marks out of a total of thirty seven. But to be fair, every festival who gets the Award is well on the way to being one of the greenest festivals in the world - the Award is based on a 56 part questionnaire which covers office management, cutting greenhouse gas emissions, supporting green initiatives, travel and transport, waste and recycling, water management, environmental protection and noise reduction - and almost all the festivals will receive a visit from an independent auditor to assess their green efforts. This year we had a number of new entrants to the scheme and these included Standon Calling in Hertfordshire, Y-Not in Derbyshire, the Manchester International Festival, West Beach in California, the Atlanta Jazz Festival, Big Tent in Scotland and the Rototom Reggae Sunsplash, a ten dayer in Italy.

This year, all the winning Festivals will receive a special trophy designed by competition winner Sade Goddard from Keswick School in Cumbria whose winning design is made from recycled plastic bottles, crushed CDs and remoulded Wellington boots. The Awards, which are sponsored by Roberston Taylor, music industry insurance brokers, will be handed out at the UK Festival Awards which will be held at the O2 Arena in London on November 19th 2009 when the overall winner of the ‘Greener Festival Award 2009’ will be announced as well.

AGreenerFestival co-founder Ben Challis said “We were worried that in a year when the recession bit hard we might see Festivals shying away from their ongoing commitment to green issues, but we have been generally pleased with the efforts of festivals around the world to keep sustainability high on their own agenda and to promote environmental awareness to fans. We had more ‘outstanding’ winners in 2009 and a 20% rise in applications from 2008, with more international applications than ever with fine winners from Australia, four from the USA and four from mainland Europe. But much remains to be done and in the UK, and a car centric society means that audience travel, and indeed leisure travel in general is a massive problem, clearly not helped by an obvious lack of coherent public transport policies.”

In particular this year our independent auditors were really pleased by the number of festivals that were expanding on their environmental policies and talking to fans. The Hive chill out zone at the Isle of Wight caught our attention, as did Leicester’s Summer Sundae Weekender’s attention to talking to fans and T-in-the-Park's green efforts. It was also good to see a real move to use local products – festivals like Croissant Neuf make a real effort to get local suppliers to provide local products – anything from beer to bread to bikes to baltis! The other thing we noted was just how many festivals have now adopted souvenir cups for beer – festivals like Cambridge and Szeged have re-usable cups and not only do these dramatically cut down on waste and pollution, they reduce litter on site and give you a real memento to take home!

FINAL WINNERS: THE GREENER FESTIVAL AWARD 2009

OUTSTANDING GREENER FESTIVALS

BESTIVAL (England)
BONNAROO (USA)
BIG TENT (Scotland)
BLUESFEST (Aus)
CROISSANT NEUF (Wales)
ELOICA (Spain)
ISLE OF WIGHT (England)
PEATS RIDGE (Aus)
ROTHBURY (USA
SOUTHBOUND (Aus)
SUNRISE (England)
WAVEFORM (England)
WORKHOUSE (Wales)

THE GREENER FESTIVAL AWARD WINNERS

BIG SESSION (England)
CAMBRIDGE FOLK FESTIVAL (England)
CAMP BESTIVAL (England)
THE CITY OF LONDON FESTIVAL
THE FALLS FESTIVAL (Australia)
GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL (England)
FIREGATHERING (England)
MANCHESTER INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL (England)
OYA FESTIVALEN (Norway)
ROTOTOM SUNSPLASH (Italy)
SONISPHERE (England)
SUMMER SUNDAE WEEKENDER (England)
SZEGED (Hungary)
T-IN-THE-PARK (Scotland)
WEST BEACH (USA)
WOMADelaide (Australia)

IMPROVING GREENER FESTIVALS

ATLANTA JAZZ FESTIVAL (USA)
BIG CHILL (England)
DOWNLOAD (England)
THE GLADE (England)
HYDE PARK CALLING (England)
STANDON CALLING (England)
WIRELESS (England)
Y-NOT (England)