A Weekend of 2 Environmental Halves
We’re excited to share an opinion piece by Dr. Teresa Moore, our Director at A Greener Future. In "A Weekend of 2 Environmental Halves," Dr. Moore examines the environmental impacts of recent events. She contrasts the groundbreaking sustainability achievements of Massive Attack’s Act 1.5 Climate Action Accelerator with the ongoing waste challenges seen at festivals like Reading, Creamfields, and Notting Hill Carnival. Her insights into these successes and shortcomings offer valuable lessons for the future of green events.
If ever there was a weekend which saw the extremes that festivals and events can have on the environment this was it.
On the one hand we saw the hugely successful and pioneering event Act 1.5 driven and headlined by the fabulous Massive Attack in Bristol. Arguably the most climate forward event ever staged it met all of its objectives by massively reducing its environmental footprint and putting down a marker for all artists and event organisers to meet. The event drew upon decarbonisation research from the Tyndall Centre who’s roadmap for staging super low carbon live music combined with the considerable practical expertise of A Greener Future in finding and implementing the best solutions ensured that the event was the greenest ever staged.
On the other hand, and in stark contrast we saw a weekend where the impact of huge amounts of event waste, were once again, all to visible. Hundreds of tons of tent and campsite waste at events like Reading and Creamfields festivals and the waste aftermath of Notting Hill Carnival are evidence that for these events nothing much has changed in decades despite a range of initiatives introduced to improve things.
Of course, these event don’t represent the whole picture and some such as the recent edition of Kendal Calling reported over 98% of tents taken home. However, these are events are on a much bigger scale, 90,000 at Reading, 70,000 Creamfields and 1 Million plus at Notting Hill Carnival.
So why can’t these events crack their waste problem. Well, most initiatives tried don’t really draw upon current research to understand the problem for their events in the way that Massive Attack has done. As a result, they tend to employ practice led rather than research led approaches often using the same range of tactics which in a variety of different festival contexts have been shown not to work; tent deposits, trash/ green heroes, education, slogans and signage, campaigns and so on. Which means that they are caught in an almost inevitable and repetitive loop which produces the same waste laden result each year.
After carrying out research over three years on the campsites at the Isle of Wight Festival and work with the Green Peace events team to introduce a green and clean eco-campsite at Download Festival my research has shown that for some events waste including tent waste is an ingrained, decades long part of the culture of the event. Indeed, the festival waste culture can be traced right back to the very beginning of music festivals, to the late 1960s and early 1970’s. Early photos of Knebworth, the Isle of Wight Festival and of course Woodstock in the US show a disturbingly similar picture. Is it any wonder that changing a culture which is decades old is very difficult.
Added to this and part of the waste culture that some festivals have unwittingly encouraged over the years with their audiences is that “someone else will clear it up”.
To end the waste culture, I argue that we need to look at what behavioural science has to tell us about ingrained behaviours and how we can change them. Further each festival and event that has this problem needs to better understand their audiences, their wants and needs and how these can be influenced towards green practices. This is not say that they always have to push the environmental agenda. My research shows that this is not necessary and in fact doesn’t work with those for whom, climate change and the environmental impact of their actions isn’t on their radar, at least not when they’re attending a live music event.
At the same time organisers need to look more closely at what they are communicating via their websites and through the media about their expectations as regards cleaning up their events. This also means that they need to have a plan for concerted action to enforce those expectations and then to carry them out on site.
Sounds tough, in my view organisers need to be more committed to solving the waste problem at their events. Instead of employing an ad hoc range of initiatives which have been shown not to work at other events they need to fundamentally change the culture of waste that their events have created. They need to show a firm and consistent approach which is applied not just once but repeatedly over each and every edition. And those actions need to be rooted in behavioural science and research that has already been carried out.
I have put together a playbook of actions to help events and festivals break free of tactics that don’t work and the endless cycle of waste at their events.
For anyone interested in finding out more please contact
For more of Dr. Moore’s insights and future opinion pieces, follow her on LinkedIn here.
