Festival and Event Industry Tackle Sustainability, Social Division & Censorship

With just 2 weeks to go until A Greener Festival and the ILMC’s eagerly awaited Green Events & Innovations Conference (GEI9), London’s Royal Garden Hotel, 7th March, the full line up of top speakers and sessions has been released.

The live event and festival industry are coming together to tackle issues of sustainability and the role that the global live events industry must take in the face of perceived political and social divisions, and artistic censorship.

GEI9 will debate issues from site design and infrastructure, sustainable set and stage design, the impact of fireworks and special effects on the environment, what Brexit and the current political environment means for events, and how censorship and oppression of musicians is reported to have doubled between 2015 and 2016.

This is set to be a pivotal event of lively, challenging and meaningful exchanges.

The UK’s Sustainability Conference for Festivals and Events is back on Tuesday 7th March 2017

GEI9 is A Greener Festival’s annual flagship event delivered in partnership with the International Live Music Conference (ILMC). Each year welcoming diverse and inspiring speakers and projects from around the world to gather and challenge the way we deliver events towards a better impact for our environment and society.

The theme for GEI9 is “Sustainable Design”. The art of creating every aspect of great events involves both creativity and impeccable production techniques. By instilling ecological, economic and social principles in to all aspects of event design in conception, communication, implementation and review, necessary changes can be achieved.

GEI 9 will explore how sustainable design is being applied to operations, artwork, infrastructure and management, to align events with our natural and technological environment in the 21st century.

This is in addition to the usual program of the most current innovations and developments at festivals and events from around the world, including those assessed by A Greener Festival.

Keynote: Designing Sustainability into the DNA of Events

Lucy Legan, Co-founder, Ecocentro IPEC (BR)

Ecocentro IPEC in Brazil is the largest reference centre of sustainability in Latin America, and demonstrates scalable models of social technologies. Keynote speaker, Lucy Legan MSc, has played an integral role in environmental education in Brazil and is a best-selling author of educational books on sustainability literacy.

Since 2006, Lucy has collaborated with Boom Festival, Portugal, as it transitions to a model of sustainability by implementing permaculture edible gardens for festival-goers, natural construction, composting during the festival on a large-scale (with 90 tons composted on-site during the last edition), and by co-ordinating a highly efficient waste-management team.

Many festivals and events are taking on the challenge of innovation in sustainability. A new paradigm of sustainable and responsible events takes into account the dynamic elements potentially acting as a laboratory for change. The future of green events is in the hands of event producers and event attendees.

Permaculture design offers a framework for thinking and designing sustainable festivals and events, where new economies, ecological landscapes, scaled technological solutions, transition strategies and social redesign can be tried out in a temporary autonomous zone.

Panel: Get Lithe Leccy! Smart Design of Event Energy

Paul Schurink (ZAP Concepts, NL) | Steve Muggeridge (Green Gathering, UK) | Tim Benson (Hybrid Energy Consultant, UK)

Which festival stakeholders need to be involved in changing an event’s energy sources and how should we go about persuading traditional energy suppliers used to providing diesel generators, to completely rethink their business model?

Paul Schurink is an expert in the field of temporary energy supply, sustainability and innovations and has been involved with a variety of large-scale events including the Olympic Games and UEFA EURO 2012. He will present a case study of Zap’s work with DGTL BCN festival in Spain.

Joining Paul will be environmentally conscious event organiser and sustainable event veteran, Steve Muggeridge, of iconic Green Gathering fame, who will reveal how the event’s team go about designing the site layout, their use of power hubs, and even the programming of the entertainment, in order that the entire festival is run on renewable energy.

 

Launch: The Smart Energy for Outdoor Festivals Guide
Chris Johnson, Powerful Thinking, Shambala Festival (UK)

Five years on from the launch of The Power Behind Festivals Guide, Powerful Thinking has released a comprehensive update to their indispensable industry energy guide – Smart Energy for Outdoor Festivals. And what’s more, this eagerly awaited guide will be exclusively launched by Chris Johnson, during GEI9.

Presentation: Latest Actions & Challenges for Greener Festivals
Claire O’Neill, Co-Founder, A Greener Festival (UK)

Following the assessment of 25 festivals across 11 countries in 2016, A Greener Festival will provide insight into the latest developments and key challenges that events are experiencing in the pursuit of sustainability, and will also be launching the Greener Festival Assessment Report.

Presentation: What Next? Environmental Policy Post-Brexit
Amy Mount, Head of Greener UK Unit & Senior Energy Policy Advisor, Green Alliance (UK)

Greener UK is a group of 13 major environmental organisations with a combined public membership of 7.9 million, united in the belief that the UK leaving the EU will provide us with a pivotal moment to restore and enhance the UK’s environment.

Amy Mount will offer insights into the risks and opportunities that Brexit poses to UK environmental policy, and the work of Greener UK, which includes NGOs such as WWF, Greenpeace, National Trust and the Woodland Trust.

Panel: Wider Environment – Nationalism & Climate Change Denial 
Fruzsina Szép, Yourope (DE) | Holger Jan Schmidt, Co-founder, GO Group (DE) | Stephen Budd, Stephen Budd Music (UK) | Ivan Milivojev, Exit Festival (RS) | Amy Mount, Green Alliance (UK) 

Green events are about more than just lowering our environmental impact. In this session, we will look at the social and cultural effects of recent global political developments, and what role events might play.

Fruzsina Szép will share the actions of European festival association, Yourope, and their recent Take a Stand initiative, aimed at encouraging festival promoters to foster values of “social togetherness, understanding and tolerance for all cultures, genders, races, religions, sexual orientations, colours and origins.”

Fruzsina will be joined by renowned artist manager, Stephen Budd, who will be sharing his recent experiences of artist censorship and oppression with us; along with Exit Festival’s Ivan Milivoje, GO Group’s Holger Jan Schmidt and Amy Mount from Green Alliance.

According to research from the FreeMuse annual report Art Under Threat, such cases have more than doubled since 2015. What action must we take, therefore, to protect our freedom to present an alternative, inclusive vision for society?

Panel: Sustainable Set & Stage Design
Chris Tofu, Continental Drifts (UK) | Bertie Cole, Arcadia Spectacular (UK) | Tim Leigh, Stage One (UK)

With the competition to create sets and stages that are more impressive, more elaborate, and more expensive to build, maintain and shift, this session will ask how innovative approaches to extravagant stage and set design can be delivered without a jarring waste of the world’s resources. Hear from the leading set and stage designers and builders about what techniques are being adopted to reduce the waste without loosing the artistic impact.

Panel: The Environmental Impact of Fireworks
Aymeric Lecomte, A Greener Festival/Bournemouth University (UK)

They might be visually impressive but what is the environmental impact of firework displays at events? Is there a legitimate cause for concern or does the bang really outweigh the bother?

Aymeric Lecomte presents the latest research on this controversial subject, and opens the debate for the future of special effects in the live entertainment industry.

Tom will present an industry and consultant's view on the environmental issues surrounding the use of fireworks and pyrotechnics - and to try and dispel some of the myths that surround their use at events big or small.

Drawing on his experience as a chemist and having worked in the industry since his teenage years and latterly as a consultant to major events such as London NYE and the Olympics, Tom has a unique perspective on what the issues really are.

Panel: The Future World of Special Effects 
Patrick O’Mahoney, Newsubstance (UK) | Aymeric Lecomte, AGF (UK) | Dr Thomas Smith, Pyrotechnics Association (UK) | Dr Thomas Smith, British Pyrotechnics Association (UK) | Stuart Warren-Hill, HoloGauze (UK)

Having turned the spotlight on the environmental impact of fireworks and special FX, Dr Thomas Smith, Patrick and Aymeric will take a subsequent look at alternative methods of providing the wow factor at events without literally costing the earth.

From drones, lasers and holograms to mind boggling chemical compounds – what are the safe alternatives in the explosive world of special effects?

Panel: Designing Inputs for Greener Outputs 
Chris Cooke, CMU (UK) | Sid Sharma, Shambala Festival (UK) | Lucy Legan, Boom Festival (PT) | Mikkel Sander, Roskilde Festival (DK)

Smart events choose smart design. In this panel we will look at how infrastructure can be planned and delivered in a way that it will help events significantly lower their wastage of fuel, water, food, materials and resources.

Where | When

GEI9 will take place at the Royal Garden Hotel in London from 10:00 until 18:00 on Tuesday 7 March 2017. 

Immediately after the event, all GEI delegates are invited to attend a closing drinks event that will take place in the York Suite of the hotel for a chance to network, discuss the day's events and enjoy a tipple or six.

Rooms 3 & 4, Lower Ground Floor, Royal Garden Hotel
2-24 Kensington High St, Kensington, London W8 4PT, UK
10:00 - 18:00, Tuesday 7 March 2017

Hosts: A Greener Festival | ILMC

Registration | Rates

A delegate pass for GEI costs £99 plus booking fee, with a discounted rate of £65 available to ILMC delegates, students, and members of AGF, AIF and Yourope. The ticket price 

includes a five-star lunch, refreshments, and a closing drinks party.

Please note that all our early-bird tickets are now sold-out.

ILMC delegates should tick the relevant box when registering for ILMC.

Members of AGF, AIF and Yourope are limited to two representatives per festival, and should contact hello@agreenerfestival.com.

Non-ILMC delegates should click here to register for GEI9.

To see footage and presentations from previous editions of GEI, click here.

For more information and tickets, click here.

A Greener Festival Award Winners Announced at EuroSonic

The European and US  festivals who have won of the prestigious Greener Festival Award 2016 have been announced at the Eurosonic Noorderslag festival and conference in Groningen, the Netherlands.  The winners are a select elite of sustainable events who have entered the Greener Festival Awards scheme,  and submitted their environmental good practice to an external independent assessment. AGF's Teresa Moore made three awards in person, to Body & Soul, Das Fest and the Glastonbury Festival. The Awards ceremony also announced a new initiative from the municipality of Utrecht, A Greener Festival and Green Events Nederland. Utrecht's Hedwih Leijten and Green Events Paul Schurink were on hand to explain that Utrecht would now support festivals to enter the Greener Festival Awards scheme, and that the scheme is likely to spread to other Dutch municipalities.

The Greener Festival Award 2016 winners:

IMPROVING
Arla Food Fest
Body & Soul
La Sema
Metal Days
Nozstock - the Hidden Valley
Paradise City

COMMENDED
Bona Nit BCN
Das Fest
Extrema Outdoors
Greenbelt Festival
Kew the Music
Liberation Festival
Malmofestivalen
Northside Festival
Primavera Sound
Wood Festival

HIGHLY COMMENDED
Cambridge Folk Festival
DGTL
Glastonbury Festival
Green Music Festival
Heart of Glass Heart of Gold
Oya Festival
Welcome to the Future

OUTSTANDING
Boom Festival
We Love Green

First 2016 Greener Festival Award Winners Announced at ADE Green

The first winners of the Greener Festival Award 2016 have been announced at ADE Green, part of the massive Amsterdam Dance Event.

Welcome to the Future, DGTL, Liberation Festival and Extrema Outdoors were all winning Dutch events who participated in the Award scheme in 2016, and the awards ceremony was organised with Green Events Nederland.

The one day ADE Green took place yesterday (October 19th 2016): ADE Green is a pioneering conference on sustainability, innovation, and social change looking at meaningful solutions for the future. This year, panels and workshops included a focus on sustainable management at major festivals, and series of in-depth workshops where initiatives such as the reusable festival cup and sustainable event management were explored, Green Events Nederland offered tips and tricks for a waste free festival, and other workshops included sanitation - and whether human waste is the the "new gold", and how to make the right choice of food - whether biological, local and vegetarian, as well as the impact this choice has on the environment. ADE Green returns to ADE in 2017.

To enter the award scheme, led by A Greener Festival, events submit a self assessment which is followed by an on site independent inspection, post event data gathering and a detailed report by the environmental assessor. The assessment forms the basis for the events Environmental Impact Assessment and is a important tool to help events to identify where improvements can be made, as well as celebrating the positive and successful existing actions.

Organiser of Extrema Outdoors, Marcel Mingers’ said: “We are delighted to win this award, which is a great reward for our efforts. Extrema is looking forward to an even greener future.”

A Greener Festival has assessed over 300 festivals over the last 10 years, and re-launched the Awards criteria in 2016 raising the bar and increasing the feedback and reporting available to events. This year's winners have also already added another 25 trees to AGF's Festival Wood in Scotland, a decidious re-forestation project managed by Trees for Life.

Ben Eddie, the AGF Awards Co-ordinator said "I am thrilled to have represented A Greener Festival at the sold out 4th edition of ADE Green at De Brakke Grond, the perfect platform and a new partnership. I was even more pleased  to have opportunity to meet familiar names from coordinating our UK & Europe awards for the first time this year. It was a real pleasure to present the Dutch awards to Liberation and Extrema Outdoor NL (both Commended), and DGTL and Welcome to the Future (both Highly Commended). It was an inspiring program and what better way to finish a packed day of workshops, presentations, and panels than by celebrating the successes of our first Award winners of 2016. It was also awesome too see such a mix of industry professionals, suppliers, and the next generation of festival and live event organisers and students in the same space. The future is now!”

The first results:

Welcome to the Future (HIGHLY COMMENDED)

DGTL Festival (HIGHLY COMMENDED)

Liberation Festival (COMMENDED)

Extrema Outdoors (COMMENDED)

Robertson Taylor keep up the green theme

Robertson Taylor W&P Longreach, who provide entertainment insurance worldwide, have agreed to sponsor A Greener Festival for 2015 – 2016. Robertson Taylor have  sponsored A Greener Festivals international Awards scheme for seven years, and with the scheme taking ‘a year off’, have agreed to  sponsor AGF's website this year.

A Greener Festival co-founder Ben Challis said “Robertson Taylor have been fantastic supporters of our environmental work with live events over the years and their generosity in funding the running costs of our website this year is truly appreciated by the whole team at A Greener Festival. We also plan to keep on working with a range of strong campaigns we have already committed too including Powerful Thinking – the not-for-profit industry think-do tank working towards an energy efficient, low carbon and cost effective future for festivals; Love Your Tent – the campsite waste campaign created by Eco-action Partnership in association with A Greener Festival and designed to bond people with their portable homes; and our new project 8th Plate – a partnership with FareShare SouthWest and the Nationwide Caterers Association – it’s a food waste project which aims to reduce the amount of food waste at events and develop systems to salvage food and redistribute food – before it goes off – and builds our work with Sustain who publish the ‘ Good Food for Festivals Guide‘ and the ‘ Good Food Guide for Festival and Street-food Caterers‘. We also plan to keep supporting the GO Group (Green Operations Europe); we now have a partnership with the ILMC to present our annual conference, Green Events & Innovations in 2016. On top of this we plan to keep planting trees in Festival Wood! Robertson Taylor’s support will make all of this possible – so it’s a big ‘thank you’ from us!”

John Silcock, CEO at RT, added, “The environment is and will always be an important issue. As part of our community programme, we are delighted to support A Greener Festival’s work and to support festivals that are reducing their environmental impact.”

For more information about RT please visit http://rtworldwide.com/music-event-insurance/

More green winners at the European Festival Awards

Three more festivals picked up their Greener Festival Award 2014 certificates at the European Festival Awards in Groningen, Holland, on the 14th January with OyaFestivalen (Norway) and Ilosaarirock (Finland) both picking up their 'Outstanding' Awards and Northside (Germany) picking up their 'Highly Commended' Award from European Festivals Awards host and A Greener Festival co-founder Ben Challis.

Denmark's Roskilde Festival picked up the GO (Green Operations) Award in the main Festival Awards Europe for their campaign against food waste.

Ilosaarirock collect their Award

Katri looks pleased!

The Oya team collect their Award

Well done Northside!

RECORD BREAKING YEAR FOR GREENER FESTIVAL AWARD SCHEME

36 festivals from around the World have been awarded the Greener Festival Award by the environmental campaign and advice group A Greener Festival. The Award scheme, supported by Robertson Taylor WP Longreach Insurance Brokers, acknowledges that festivals do have an impact simply by taking place, but aims to encourage festival organisers to make the best decisions to minimise their event’s environmental impact, to monitor, identify and correct negative effects, and to share the message of caring for the environment with their audiences so that festivals can have a positive impact beyond the event itself. The Awards asks festival organisers to respond to the challenges that staging temporary events can have on the environment and local inhabitants including humans. This year A Greener Festival say they have witnessed incredible initiatives, designs, developments and commitment to reducing the impact of live events - demonstrating that festivals can be sustainable, save money, be responsible, and still have fun by becoming a ‘Greener Festival'

At the highly commended Bonnaroo (US), A Greener Festival’s independent environmental assessor commented that the festival’s “investment in long term energy from their solar panels is second to none”. At the commended DGTL festival in Amsterdam, organisers used significant efforts to raise environmental awareness and brought in a design-focussed environmental coordinator, undertaking a pre-festival study to understand their own, and their neighbours' priorities. This led to a key design feature of an on-site "recycling factory" which turned waste plastic bottles and containers into recycled plastic bins during the festival in front of the audience's eyes. At another commended festival, Planeta Madrid in Spain, the City Council has instigated a plan called Madrid Compensa which allows trees to be planted to offset the CO2 emissions from the festival - and PlanetaMadrid also has a free bicycle workshop not just to learn about cycling – festival goers can take their bikes to be fixed as well!  At the Shambala Festival in the UK, rated ‘outstanding by A Greener Festival,  organisers achieved 100% renewable power and a ‘zero to landfill’ unrecycled waste target - as waste streams were diverted from landfill to a MBT (mechanical biological treatment) plant whilst a plastic water bottle ban was a continued success – as were the  ever popular Thunderbox compost toilets.

At the commended Body and Soul Festival in Ireland, the environmental assessors were very impressed by imaginative use of the spaces, including woodland groves, saying that the site and stages were beautifully decorated with recycled materials. The highly commended Northside Festival in Denmark encourages people to travel to the event using low carbon methods of transport – Northside offers bike stands for more than 10 000 bikes and organises festival buses – as well as the “Camino” - a decorative pathway through a park from the town of Aarhus to the festival site, encouraging visitors to walk or cycle from the town centre to the festival. The highly commended Malmo Festivalen in Sweden was praised for its efforts to demonstrate social inclusion, well being, environmental consideration and wider sustainability, whilst the commended Calgary Folk Music festival has emerged as a leader and model for public events in Calgary in terms of its waste management and recycling, with a water bottle ban and the encouragement of reusable/recyclable materials in vending.

So far 15 festivals have received the ‘commended’ award, 12 have received ‘highly commended’ and 9 have been rated ‘outstanding’ by A Greener Festival. More winners of the awards will be announced in November with a total of nearly 50 awards expected, a new record for the Awards scheme, with the first ever recipients in Denmark, Austria and New Zealand.  Winners of the Awards can pick up their certificates  at the Green Events Europe conference in Bonn, Germany (3^rd November), at the UK FestivalAwards in London (1^st December 1), at the International Music Festival Conference in Austin, Texas (6-7 December) and at the European Festival Awards in Groningen (14^th January 14).

COMMENDED

Beloved (US)

Body and Soul (Ireland)

Bluesfest  (Australia)

Calgary Folk Music Festival (Canada)

Canmore Folk Festival (Canada)

DGTL Festival (Netherlands)

Extrema Outdoor (Netherlands)

Maifeld Derby (Germany)

Northern Nights Music Festival (USA)

Nozstock The Hidden Valley (UK)

Planeta Madrid  (Spain) 

Plissken (Greece)

Sled Island   (Canada)

SOS 4:8  (Spain) 

T in the Park  (SCO)

HIGHLY COMMENDED

Bonnaroo (USA)

Bona Nit  (Spain)

DAS FEST  (Germany)

The Falls Music and Arts Festival, Lorne (Australia)

Freifeld Festivalt(Germany)

Global 2000 Tomorrow Festival (Austria)

Malmo Festivalen (Sweden)

Mysteryland (Netherlands)

Northside  (Denmark)

Splendour in the Grass (Australia)

Splore  (New Zealand)

Wood (UK)

OUTSTANDING

Cambridge Folk  Festival (UK)

The Falls Music and Arts Festival, Marion Bay (Australia)

Ilosaarirock Festival  (Finland) 

Island Vibe 2013  (Australia)

Lightning In A Bottle (USA)

Oyafestivalen (Norway)

Shambala Festival (UK)

We Love Green (France)

Welcome to the Future (Netherlands)

Wood, Shambala and Nozstock collected their awards at the AIF Festival Congress in Cardiff and DGTL, Welcome to the Future,  Extrema Outdoors and Mysteryland collected their awards in Amsterdam at ADE Dance.

A Greener Festival co-founder Ben Challis said: “This year has been an encouraging year for environmentally aware events and a record year for our Awards scheme, with more festivals than ever before taking part. Rising fuel costs prove the good sense in reducing power use, and the ever increasing costs in disposing of waste prove the importance of managing waste and having sensible recycling policies. Problems remain of course – from England to Australia, one of the biggest problems is the appalling sight of acres of left behind tents and camping gear at festivals, and we will be prioritising this again in 2015. On a positive front, many of our participating events have raised the bar yet again –  and we are seeing some amazing initiatives, incredible commitment and  festivals reaching out to spread the green message in a friendly, practical and effective way”

Robertson Taylor and A Greener Festival tie up for another year

Environmental campaign and advice group A Greener Festival have announced Robertson Taylor W&P Longreach (RT) insurance brokers as the headline sponsor for the Greener Festival Awards Scheme for its 6th year running. RT have been the main sponsor of the awards since 2008.  Ben Challis, co-founder of A Greener Festival said, “As a not for profit organisation, and with no government funding, RT’s sponsorship is vital to our worldwide Awards scheme and on-going campaign”. John Silcock, CEO at RT, added, “The environment is and will always be an important issue. As part of our community programme, we are delighted to support A Greener Festival’s work and to support festivals that are reducing their environmental impact.” 

And Robertson Taylor W&P Longreach (RT) have also announced that they will again offer discounts on the cost of insurance for UK  festivals that adopt green initiatives.  Commenting on this RT said that they are very pleased that insurers recognise the efforts of festival organisers, to introduce green initiatives so that they can pass on the benefits to their clients.  RT have negotiated special discounts for any festival organisers who are striving to make their festivals greener that implement at least 5 of the 16 green initiatives that are suggested by A Greener Festival.

 www.rtworldwide.com

FESTIVAL HARVEST 2011

FESTIVAL HARVEST 2011 is the new CD from A Greener Festival with eleven new bands for 2011 – all packed in recycled card to reduce the CD’s carbon footprint and promote a lower carbon future. CD packaging (in particular plastic jewel cases) can contribute up to 90% of a CD’s carbon footprint – so simply swapping to card packaging makes a big big difference.

The bands on the CD were all chosen because they are simply some of the best emerging talent from around the festivals in 2011 – and the new CD will be launched at the UK Festivals Conference on November 15th November at the Forum in Kentish Town, London. Abd the are (with their track)

Twin Brother - Lungs / My First Tooth - Orchards / Empty Headz - From Before / Related to Merv - BBC2 / J-Treole - Skydive / Fallen Trees - Black Eagle / Freddie & The Fair Stone Youth - Got A Little Soul / Kamal Arafa & The Moonlight Band - Grey / London Afrobeat Collective - Lagos Junction / Louise & The Pins - Beauty Strange / Akayzia - Sleepwalking

http://www.agreenerfestival.com/index.html

Kanrocksas plans streaming with iClips

The new Kanrocksas Music Festival which will take over the Midwest and Kansas City area at the Kansas Speedway on August 5th and 6th has inked a deal with iClips.net to cover the Festival. AOL.com and Rollingstone.com will also feature the live broadcast. With a planned 50,000 attendees, the event will feature headliners Eminem and Muse, plus over 20 other acts including The Black Keys, A Perfect Circle, The Flaming Lips, Bassnectar, Kid Cudi and Ween. The free live streaming of the event begins on Friday, August 5 at iClips.net

Festivals green up

A Greener Festival has published an analysis of all of the entries into the 2010 Greener Festival Awards scheme which shows just how far festivals around the World have come in adopting environmentally friendly practices. The results show that 100% of the participating festivals now promote public transport in an attempt to reduce audience greenhouse gas emissions, which are the largest contributor to most festival’s carbon footprint, and 58% offer tickets which combine festival entry with rail/coach tickets. A whopping 88% now promote liftshare or car pooling – to push up car occupancy for visitors to the site, with the aims of both reducing greenhouse gas emissions and the need for extensive parking areas. 77% of participating festivals measure greenhouse gas emissions from audience travel, artist travel and transport and festival production.

When it came to recycling, 100% of the entrants had some form of recycling, and 75% of events now ban non-recyclable disposable good such as polystyrene containers, preferring either to concentrate on re-usable containers for food and drink or recyclable cups, plates and cutlery. When it came to the delicate issue of human waste, 47% now had compost toilets on site (up from 36% in 2009), with many saying these were preferred by customers. 84% of festivals have now adopted the use of at least some renewable energies on-site (up from 71% in 2009) which include solar power, wind power, hydro-electric power and bio-diesel from sustainable sources. Whilst 90% now have written environmental policies to reduce CO2 emissions, only 39% had completed full carbon footprint or greenhouse gas analysis.

Of the Award winning festivals, all (100%) now had a dedicated environmental co-ordinator (up fro 91% in 2009), 93% have a written environmental policy, 91% had policies and measures in place to reduce noise pollution, 55% ask caterers to uise organic and/or free range products, 64% undertook an environmental impact analysis and 90% had a ‘switch off and save’ policy in their business premises.

The analysis, by Nicolas Pianet, was based on entries from 47 festivals who all won the 2010 Greener Festival Award. See www.agreenerfestival.com

Treetop Flyers top Glastobury Emerging Talent

London based country blues outfit Treetop Flyers have won the Glastonbury Festival Emerging Talent Competition in a hard fought battle that saw them secure a main stage slot at the 2011 Festival. Othr finalists were Emily & The Woods, J-Treole, My First Tooth, My Tiger My Timing, Tristram, Twin Brother and Louise & The Pins. The two day finals event also saw performances from four 'judges selections' which were Subsource, L.A.C, Kamal Arafa & the Moonlight Band and Freddie Dickson. Promoter Michael Eavis promised that a number of the runner up bands would get bookings on different stages accross the Festival and some would appear on the 2011 'Festivals Harvest' CD.

Green Events & Innovations conference

Environmental campaign group AGreenerfestival, Bucks New University and music industry climate change initiative Julies Bicycle are launching a new one day conference and training day to be held at Bucks New University in High Wycombe on April 20th. The one day conference will encompass a morning training session including measuring greenhouse gas emissions and waste management and three panels in the afternoon looking at festivals, travel and power solutions. You can find out more at www.agreenerfestival.com/blog . Registration is £75 or £50 for AIF members and students.