Sustainable music festivals: the plastic-free, carbon neutral events making a big difference
- Arts and music festivals can be terrible for the environment, from the waste they create to the energy required to host them
- Events like Thailand’s Wonderfruit and Singapore’s Garden Beats, however – both certified carbon-free – have found ways to hugely reduce their impact
It’s no secret that arts and cultural festivals can have a huge negative impact on the environment.
Firstly, they create a lot of waste: from plastic and packaging from food and drinks containers to things like backdrops and banners. Then there’s the amount of energy used both to power the site and to get people there.
But many are now trying to promote a positive environmental message and are taking a range of steps to reduce their impact.
The UK’s Glastonbury, one of the world’s most iconic music festivals, made headlines this year when it banned the sale of single-use plastic bottles. Several events in Asia have been going even further: Hong Kong’s Shi Fu Miz claims to be the city’s first zero-waste music festival, while both Thailand’s Wonderfruit and Singapore’s Garden Beats are now certified as carbon neutral.
Making a festival genuinely sustainable is difficult, however, with the challenges varying by location. For city-based festivals, the problems involve limited access to the site and a lack of control over infrastructure, while for rural events it is more about how people get there.
Some issues are easily solved – water refill stations and reusable bottles can replace single-use plastic, for example (although there is also the issue of how the water gets to the site). Composting toilets are a good idea, but not practical for a lot of events which only take place once a year. Food should be locally sourced, organic and vegan as far as possible – but often that’s not very far at all.