Homepage Quick Find:
- Festival Wood project gets underway
- AGF Team up with Virtual Festivals
- Great Big Green Ideas Competition 2009
- Applications for AGF Award 2009
- Brits 2009 launches Music Industry Green Mark
- New AGF Website Build
- Michael Eavis to receive MIDEM Green World Award
- UK Festival Awards Ceremony & Conference a great success
- Final AGF Awards 2008 Winners Announced
- Big Green Coach launches
- Who Are We?
- Sponsors
- Our Ethical Policy
Latest News:
Festival Wood project begins!
Festival Wood is going to be a brand new wood planted by volunteers from AGreenerFestival.com to symbolise music fans' commitment to protecting the environment. The planned 5 acre wood will be planted on grazing land and will be a mix of native deciduous trees and we hope that the wood will be colonised by wild birds, mammals and insects as it grows.
Fans can contribute to Festival Wood by making any sort of donation. Just £3 will plant a tree! £5 will plant two! This isn't an offsetting scheme - everyone should still try and reduce your environmental impact by using public transport, lift sharing, cycling or walking wherever you can, recycling and caring for the environment - but if you are going to a Festival this year why not go the extra distance and make a donation to help create Festival Wood? Absolutely anything helps and if we exceed the target we will just find more land and plant more trees! We are also hoping to be able to buy a biodigester to eat up waste food and other organic material and produce renewable gas in the process!
TEXT 'FESTIVAL' or 'festival' TO 82540 and you will plant a tree - £3 will be donated.
TEXT 'GREENER' or 'greener' to 82540 and you will plant two trees - this will cost you £5
The money you donate will be deducted from your phone - it's called reverse billing. You can also send a cheque payable to 'A Greener Festival Ltd' and post to 8 Henley Prior, Collier Street, London N1 9JU. We are a formally constituted 'not for profit' company and everything helps. The more we get, the more we can do, so please help. THANK YOU.
A Greener Festival team up with Virtual Festivals
We’ve teamed up with those good folks at Virtual Festivals (www.Virtualfestivals.com) to put up some webpages called My Greener Festival that give practical advice on getting greener - and reveal what some of the more enlightened festival organisers are already doing to make their events more sustainable. Take a look at the new pages here: www.virtualfestivals.com/green.
We are hoping that this new initiative, coupled with our Great Big Green Ideas competition which we launched with the Big Issue, Glastonbury and T-in-The-Park, means that festival organisers, crew, artists and fans can all participate in what is become an increasingly important battle against climate change.
Great Big Green Ideas Competition 2009 Launches
Posted | 06.05.09
Do you have a good idea to make
music festivals that little bit
greener? Last year our Great Big
Green Ideas competition came up
with suggestions as diverse as
banning catering sauce sachets
(what's wrong with a bottle of
sauce!) to promoting green travel
like coaches and cycling to using onsite
biodigesters for food waste -
and many of your ideas were a
smash hit with Festival Organisers. In fact the competition was so successful we're
doing it all again - with a top goodie bag crammed full of festival merchandise
(including two exclusive crew T-shirts) and top CD and DVD releases- for the person
who comes up with the best green idea for festivals in 2009.
Email your suggestions (in English please) to agreenerfestival@aol.com as soon as you can! The closing date is midnight on the 25th May 2009. The best suggestions will be published on this website.
A Big Green 'Thank You' to Festival Republic, Glastonbury Festival, T-in-The-Park, The BRIT Awards and Big Life Management for the fabulous prizes.
Applications Now Wanted for the 2009 Greener Festival Awards
Posted | 20.02.09
Last year twenty four UK festivals and eight international festivals were awarded the prestigious Greener Festival Award and three of our UK Festivals (Waveform, Shambala and the Camden GreenFair) were awarded the 'outstanding' mark alongside the Bonnaroo Festival and the Rothbury Festival in the USA.
We are now open to applications for the 2009 festival season. If you are interested in applying for the Award you need to complete a 56 question self assessment form and submit this with any relevant supporting documentation such as your environmental policy. We will also usually arrange for an independent environmental assessor to visit your site who will complete their own assesment on your environmental practuces. There is a fee payable of £100 to cover our assessor's costs and our administration costs. If the travel costs are higher than this we may ask for an increased contribution and if you have difficulty paying the fee we can discuss alternatives with you.
Download the application form and APPLY NOW:
MS WORD FORMAT (download & email to: agreenerfestival@aol.com)
PDF FORMAT (print & email here for postal address)
Our Awards scheme is supported by Robertson Taylor Insurance brokers who also offer a discount scheme for public liability insurance based on green criteria.
See: www.robertsontaylor.com/music.
Brits Album 2009 Launches Music Industry Green Mark
Posted | 10.02.09
Sony Music's new Brits 2-CD Compilation, released to tie in with the Brit Awards 2009 ceremony, provides a benchmark in eco-friendly album packaging.
The album, the first in the series to be made from eco-friendly packaging, features 40 hits by artists in the singles chart of 2008, including Rihanna, Oasis, Girls Aloud, Duffy, The Verve, Elbow, Kings of Leon and Madonna.
The paper used in the packaging is approved by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), and industry environmental body Julie's Bicycle has awarded the release its Industry Green Mark for eco-friendly design, the first album to receive such recognition.
Julie's Bicycle is the cross music industry initiative on climate change and the new IG mark has been set up to recognise a committment to reduce greenhouse gas emission and promote environmental sustainability. The mark conforms to international accounting standards and protocols.
The NEW GreenerFestival.com website!
Posted | 01.03.09
Welcome to our newly redesigned website! If you are a regular visitor, you will have noticed that we've had a spring clean and totally redesigned the layout of the site. Hopefully you will find this a nicer place to be and easier to get around...let us know!
As we're still in the process of integrating the website content and links - please let us know if you find anything broken / missing by emailing Luke Westbury.
Michael Eavis to receive MIDEM Green World Award and JB’s Alison Tickell gives green keynote
Posted | 01.01.09
Michael Eavis (pictured), founder of the UK’s Glastonbury Festival, will be honoured with the MIDEM Green World Award 2009. The Glastonbury Festival, which takes place in Somerset in June each year on Michael’s farm, had 177,500 attendees last year and green initiatives included Glastonbury’s ‘Love the farm, leave no trace’ eco-message with everything from biodegradable tent pegs, a Green Trader Award, a fleet of bio-tractors running on sustainable bio-diesel from waste vegetable oil, totally compostable beer cups and the always innovative and informative Glastonbury 
Greenfields. Glastonbury was also worthy winner of the Greener Festival Award from for the second year running. Reed Midem are also building on their green programme which started in 2008. New initiatves for the conference include a show bag made from 100% certified organic cotton, naturally bleached and produced respecting international age, security and hygiene standards in the workplace, all guide and all show magazines printed on 100% recycled paper, recyclable carpet in main alleys (with traceability system) , paper and cardboard collection throughout the whole exhibition area, glass collection on stands at the end of each day and recycling of larger banners. Alison Tickell, Chief Executive of Julie’s Bicycle will give the Green Masterclass described by MIDEM thus “in an economic climate that is less than certain there is one guaranteed growth economy and that is the green economy. This seminar will examine, by example, how music businesses have taken a lead and grown by growing green. We will identify how building an environmentally responsible business pre-empts the demands of consumers and artists and provides a market lead as well as cutting energy costs. It really does pay to go green”.
MIDEM is in Cannes, France January 18 to 21 2009
See: www.midem.com & www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk.
Logo from MIDEM website, Michael Eavis photograph from Glastonbury website.
UK Festival Awards Ceremony & Conference a great success!
Posted | 05.11.08
Picture features: Ben Challis (far left) & Claire O'Neill (far right) from AGreenerFestival.com and a selection of our 'Greener Festival Award 2008' winners.
Thank you to everyone who came to the first ever and very popular UK Festivals Conference. The feedback from the first two sessions was very very positive and we would really like to thank our panellists - Christof Huber from Yourope/Open Air St Gallen, Linnea Svensson from the Oya Festival, Alison Tickell from Julies Bicycle, Teresa Moore from Buckinghamshire New University, Nick Coad from National Express, Andrew Williams from Seventeen Events and our very own Claire O'Neill. We would also like to thank all of our Greener Festival Award winners who manged to make it to the conference, immortalised in the picture above (with Ben and Claire and our friends David and Sue from Robertson Taylor) and expecially Waveform who won the Greener Festival Award at the UK Festival Awards in the evening show at Indigo2. Anyway and most importantly, here are those UK Festival Conference links that Claire O'Neill went through during her presentation:
Recycling: Useful Links:
www.workersbeer.co.uk
www.networkrecycling.co.uk
www.beyourenvironment.com
www.completewasters.co.uk
www.buttsandgum.com/index.shtml
Compost: Useful Links:
www.vegware.com
www.nvyro.com
www.biopac.co.uk
www.comp-bio.co.uk
www.bioganix.co.uk
Portable Compost Toilets: Useful Links:
www.naturalevent.com.au
www.thunderboxes2go.co.uk
www.comfycrappers.com
Permaculture: Useful Links:
www.permaculture-info.co.uk
www.permaculture-magazine.co.uk
Other Useful Links:
www.juliesbicycle.com
www.crowdsafetymanagement.co.uk/press/
www.nationalexpress.com
www.oyafestivalen.com
www.seventeenevents.co.uk
www.yourope.org
Final 'A Greener Festival 2008' Award Winners List
Posted | 05.11.08
Huge congratulations to all of the 'A Greener Festival 2008' award winners and Yourope 'Green'n'Clean' award winners. For a full list of UK Festival Award Winners, see: www.festivalawards.com
We had an enormous response for this year's award and we are delighted to announce the full list of successful festivals as:
THE GREEN FESTIVAL AWARD 
Bestival
Big Chill
Big Session Festival
Camden Green Fair
The Cambridge Folk Festival
City Blues Festival (Leicester)
Download
End of the Road
The Glade Festival
The Glastonbury Festival
Hard Rock Calling
Hydro Connect
Latitude
Leeds Festival
Leicester City Blues Festival
Lounge on the Farm
02 Wireless Festival
Reading Festival
Shambala
Summer Sundae Weekender
T-in-the-Park
Waveform
Workhouse Festival
2000 Trees
GREENER FESTIVAL INTERNATIONAL AWARD
The Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival (USA)
Rothbury Festival (USA)
Bluesfest - Eastcoast Blues & Roots Festival (Australia)
The Falls Festival (Australia)
West Coast Blues n Roots Festival (Australia)
Southbound (Australia)
Electric Picnic (Eire)
Boom Festival (Portugal)
The Greener Festival Awards are supported by Robertson Taylor, international insurance brokers
Awards Team: Amie Green, Claire O'Neill, Luke Westbury, Emily Bibey, Chris Klasinski, Helen Wright, Joy Dyson, Kim & Pomme, Sam Hinde, Iain Hossack & Ben Challis. Photographs: Nick Cordes & Neil Davies.
GREEN N CLEAN AWARD from YOUROPE
Hultfred Festival Sweden
Lowlands The Nederlands
Rheinkultur Germany
Rock Werchter Belgium
Paléo Festival Nyon
Das Fest Germany
Pukkelpop Belgium
Roskilde Festival Denmark
Gurtenfestival Berne
Illosarirock Finland
Ruisrock Finland
Taubertal Festival Germany
Pinkpop The Nederlands
Provinssirock Finland
Les Recontres Transmusicales de Rennes France
T in the Park Scotland
Rip Curl Festival France
OpenAir St.Gallen Switzerland
Big Green Coach Launches
We are delighted that a new company dedicated to providing environmentally friendly public transport to festivals and events has launched.
If you want to see what the Big Green Coach is all about, go to: www.biggreencoach.com
Coach travel is one of the best ways to reduce your carbon footprint when travelling to a festival. Big Green Coach hope to make the experience more fun, more satisfying and more efficient for all. We are also hoping to launch an environmental project with the nice guys and girls of Big Green Coach - watch this space!
Who are we?
A Greener Festival Ltd. is a not-for-profit company committed to help music and arts events and festivals around the world adopt environmentally efficient practices through providing information, by providing education resources and by swapping ideas. The basic purpose of the site is to provide information about how environmentally efficient methods are currently employed at music and arts festivals and to provide a forum for discussion about how the impact of festivals on the environment can be limited at future events. We hope to do this by by providing information on the best ideas for greener festivals from around the world.
This site is split into sections looking at discrete areas where festivals organisers and festival goers can make a difference. We know that not every festival can adopt every idea - the original research for this site showed that some festivals have no environmental policies at all. But even tackling just one area - whether it’s having a coherent waste recycling plan or having policies to promote the use of public transport or to minimise land damage - will help. And that is also why the Message Board is vital - we need YOUR input to spread the word - if you've had a good idea or seen a good idea please do let us know and we can post these on our Message Board. There are also links to other websites which we hope are useful. Again if you send us useful links we can add these in. So please do interact so we can promote greener festivals everywhere.
Thank you,
Ben, Luke & Claire
The Greener Festival Team
A Greener Festival is proud to be supported by:
Our ethical policy
We try to maintain an ethical stance and there are certain industries (along with companies and organisations servicing those industries) we cannot deal with. We will not deal with those involved the production, sale or distribution of arms and ammunition. We will not deal with those who are involved in the exploitation of non-sustainable resources in forestry and/or in the agricultural, mining and fuel industries. We will not deal with those who exploit the individual and/or who do not respect those basic human rights enshrined in the European Convention for Human Rights. We support Fair Trade and an environmentally efficient approach. Let's all try and Make Poverty History.
Is a festival a liability to the environment? - (PDF Download); an interesting document by Henrik Bondo Nielson of Roskilde Festival, Denmark.
-------------------------------
Copyright Notification:
-------------------------------
