RECORD NUMBER OF EVENTS EARN OUR GREENER FESTIVAL AWARD

Twenty three UK and European festivals have been awarded our prestigious Greener Festival Award 2010, joining the nine Australian Festivals who were named at the beginning of the year. A final list of recipients of the Award, including additional UK, European and North American winners will be made at the beginning of October after the summer festival season ends. A record number of UK Festivals have joined the growing ranks of holders of the prestigious Greener Festival Award and the fourteen winners are: the Isle of Wight Festival, The Big Session Festival in Leicester, Wood Festival (Oxfordshire), Lounge on The Farm (Canterbury), Sonisphere at Knebworth, The Glastonbury Festival, Wireless Festival (Hyde Park), Splendour 2010 (Nottingham), The Bristol Harbour Festival, The Sunrise Celebration (Somerset), The City of London Festival, Standon Calling (Hertfordshire), The Summer Sundae Weekender (Leicester) and the Croissant Neuf Summer Party (Monmouthshire).In addition the nine European festivals are: SOS 4.8 (Spain), OpenAir St Gallen (Switzerland), The Oya Festival (Norway), Malmo Festivalen (Sweden), Grassroots (Jersey), Rock For People (Czech Republic), Open Air Festival (Czech Republic), Hadra Trance Festival (France) and Rototom Reggae Sunsplash (Spain). They join the nine Australian festivals who have already received the Greener Festival Award in 2010 - Bluesfest, The Falls Festival (on two sites) WOMADelaide, Southbound, Fairbridge, Island Vibe, Blues n Roots and Peats Ridge Festival.All of the festivals have signed up to support environmentally good practices wherever possible and work with their audiences to reduce the festival's carbon footprint, particularly from audience travel which often constitutes in excess of 70% of greenhouse gas emissions from rural sites. Festival organisers also have to complete a fifty three question assessment covering travel policies, CO2 emissions, waste and recycling policies, water use, noise pollution, environmental impact and green office policies. Festivals also have to undergo an independent environmental audit by an assessor sent by A Greener Festival. The final list of the 2010 Greener Festival Awards, which will include additional UK and US  festivals which have taken place in August and September, will be made at the beginning of October.Ben Challis, co-founder of A Greener Festival said "We have had a record number of entries in 2010 and we are on track to make a record breaking 50 plus Awards this year (up from 37 festivals in 2009, 32 festivals in 2008 and 16 festivals in 2007 when the Awards scheme began). This is particularly impressive, not least because of the economic downturn but also because year on year we have raised the bar and made our Awards scheme more and more focussed on a meaningful and practical responses to climate change and pollution. We are also delighted that we have had more European and Australian festivals entering, new entrants in the UK and growing interest in the USA, and also that a number of festivals are entering into other schemes such as the 10:10 campaign as well as using established and proven tools from Julies Bicycle to measure and then reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The UK Awards will be presented at the UK Festival Awards which will be held on Thursday November 18th at the O2 in London where the overall 'Greenest Festival' Award will be made. European Awards will hopefully be presented on the day of the European Festival Awards scheduled for January 2011 in Groningen, Netherland, where winners from European festivals organisation Yourope’s parallel 'Green n Scheme'  will also be acknowledged.Having created an Award trophy out of recycled plastic bottles, CDs and remoulded Wellington Boots in 2009, this year's award is made out of a recycled wine bottles specially re-labelled by the Award organisers. The Awards scheme is very generously sponsored by specialist music industry insurance brokers Robertson Taylor.