THE SHOW MUST GO on Environmental Impact Report for the UK Festival and Outdoor Events Industry UK MUSIC CAMPING FESTIVAL in NUMBERS
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2020 Update THE SHOW MUST GO ON Environmental impact report for the UK festival and outdoor events industry UK MUSIC CAMPING FESTIVAL IN NUMBERS 4.9m 28% UK music festival of festivals have a goers annually specific budget for environmental Requiring sustainability 0.5L 7m Diesel used per Litres of fuel used by the UK 68% of festivals have a person per day to... Equating festival industry annually sustainability coordinator or someone responsible for sustainability in As well as consuming... the team 184.5m Litres of water 100+ festivals and events have signed up to and creating... Festival Vision: 2025 25,800 BENCHMARKS FROM Tonnes of waste annually JULIE’S BICYCLE And generating... 24,261 1.9kg Tonnes CO e per year That’s... 2 CO2e per person per day 2 CONTENTS UK FESTIVAL IMPACTS 2 BY NUMBERS TABLE OF CONTENTS 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 4 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 6 FOREWORD 7 INTRODUCTION 8 WHAT THE SCIENCE IS SAYING 11 AN OVERVIEW OF THE 14 ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF UK FESTIVALS THE STATE OF PLAY IN THE 18 UK FESTIVAL INDUSTRY 2020 IMPACTS AND SOLUTIONS: ENERGY 24 RESOURCE USE & WASTE 40 FOOD 62 WATER 74 TRAVEL AND TRANSPORT 82 GOVERNANCE 100 DRIVERS OF CHANGE 110 VISION 114 SUMMARY OF 118 RECOMMENDATIONS KEY RESOURCES 124 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This report has been led by festival industry steering group Powerful Thinking: Lead authors: Chiara Badiali (Knowledge and Sector Intelligence Lead, Julie’s Bicycle) and Chris Johnson (Co-founder, Shambala Festival & Chair, Powerful Thinking) CONTRIBUTING CHAPTER AUTHORS: • Energy: Tim Benson, Founder, SMART Power & Energy Consultant, ZAP Concepts • Resource use and waste: Amanda Campbell, Sustainability Consultant, Comp-A-Tent • Water: Steve Taylor, Managing Director, Ideeas Ltd • Travel and transport: Liz Warwick, Sustainability Consultant, Lansdowne Warwick & Trustee, Energy Revolution • Governance: Chiara Badiali, Knowledge and Sector Intelligence Lead, Julie’s Bicycle • Food: Chiara Badiali, Knowledge and Sector Intelligence Lead, Julie’s Bicycl SPECIAL THANKS Vikki Chapman (Live Nation & Festival Republic), Steve Heap (Association of Festival Organisers) and Teresa Moore (A Greener Festival) for their useful comments and insights, Bethan Riach for writing the case studies and for proofing, and design from Steve and Pascoe at Plaster Creative Communications. BENCHMARKS Benchmarks based on data collected and analysed by Julie’s Bicycle. We have also drawn on surveys undertaken by A Greener Festival, CGA and AIF on audience travel splits. COPYRIGHT The Show Must Go On Report (2020) is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0) License. This means that: If the report or any contents is shared, it must be properly attributed by Title, Author and with a link to the original work and the license. The material may not be used for commercial purposes. The material may not be modified in anyway for re-distribution, without permission. 4 SUPPORTERS This report and the accompanying online Knowledge Hub was made possible by the whole industry and supply chain coming together around a shared purpose, recognising that in the face of the climate crisis, we are stronger together. Huge thanks to everyone involved. GAMECHANGERS CHAPTER SUPPORTERS HEADLINER SUPPORTERS SUPPORTERS INDUSTRY PARTNERS Thanks also to Michael Baker and the UK Festival Awards for hosting the preview launch, and to the Showman’s Show for hosting the annual Festival Vision: 2025 conference. Also to everyone who helped to raise awareness about the campaign; Stage 3 Films and Enviral for their work supporting the Crowdfunder and launch, the Festival Elves Facebook group, media supporters Standout Magazine, Event Industry News and Festival Insights. 5 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY In 2015, Powerful Thinking released The Show Must Go The sector has achieved up to 23% reduction in relative On: an industry response to the United Nations climate emissions per audience day* from energy, waste, and water, talks that gave rise to the Paris Agreement: an international mainly driven by diverting waste from landfill. Overall, total global agreement to keep global warming to well below 2ºC, music festival carbon emissions from energy, waste, and aspiring to 1.5ºC. water on-site have risen despite these gains, driven by a nearly 50% increase in audience numbers in the past 5 The original Show Must Go On report set out the Festival years. Vision: 2025, aiming to achieve a 50% reduction in outdoor event-related greenhouse gas emissions by 2025. But the ambition, momentum, and environmental literacy of the outdoor events community have flourished. The main Five years into the journey, more than 100 outdoor events driver for sustainability identified by event organisers is all across the UK have joined the Vision 2025. With the UK overwhelmingly the internal commitment of the company, hosting the international COP26 UN climate talks this year, staff, or festival team; followed by audience expectations as and the climate and ecological crisis taking a leap into a secondary driver. ‘Lack of expertise’ is no longer identified public consciousness, it was time to take stock of where we as one of the top three barriers to environmental action. are. This report renews our commitment to: • Two thirds of events now have a sustainability coordinator or someone responsible for environmental • Reduce reliance on fossil fuels and continue aiming to initiatives in their team reduce diesel consumption by 50% by 2025 compared with 2014 figures • 1 in 4 events have a dedicated sustainability budget • Reduce waste where possible, aiming for no • 1 in 3 events created a new public engagement biodegradable waste sent to landfill and achieving 50% campaign about the environment in 2019 recycling rates • 1 in 3 events introduced a new environmental policy • Work with audiences, suppliers, and artists to positively and/or action plan for their event in 2019 influence travel choices and reduce travel-related • More events overall are reporting and addressing their emissions carbon emissions • Measuring and reporting key impacts to measure • Environmental action is increasingly important to progress festivalgoers according to audience survey data • Speaking out to audiences and stakeholders and using The benchmarks for camping music festivals show a our creative voices to contribute to the public narrative reduction in waste per audience member per day from about positive change 2.8 kg in 2014 to 2 kg in 2019, driven by initiatives like The Vision 2025 community of outdoor events has created reusable cups and working with audiences to reduce the a shared community to share knowledge and expertise, amount of waste left behind in campsites. and galvanise commitment to act together towards shared Energy now makes up 77% of a festival’s on-site CO2e aims. This report is another building block on this shared footprint, and waste 23%. There are still blind spots for data roadmap. on a range of impacts including more detailed audience Please consider joining at www.vision2025.org.uk travel data, artist and contractor travel, and material/ resource use and food, but examples of some individual events starting to collect and analyse this information. 6 * (per audience member per day on site) FOREWORD Since writing the Show Must Go On Report in 2015, the context for environmental sustainability has profoundly changed around us. Taking effective action on the climate crisis is now accepted as an urgent priority across society, in most parts of the events and music industry - and is increasingly expected by event audiences. We are seeing real shifts in practices at events, and there is significant and realistic scope for improvement. In 2017 I met Phillip, organiser of Ndau Festival of the Arts We can’t all be experts in environmental science, in Chipinge area, Zimbabwe. It struck me, in the way that behavioural psychology or green communications. But we the obvious sometimes hits you in a breath-taking way, that can, and are, beginning to work together as an industry, while event organisers like myself in the UK think about creating a strong ‘community of interest’, a shared increasingly erratic weather and the changes we may need knowledge base and a movement for change toward better to make to wet-weather infrastructure in future, people in environmental practices. the community where his event takes place are dying as a Vision:2025 has brought the festival industry together to result of climate change. They have experienced repeated co-fund comprehensive free-to-use resources for everyone and increasingly severe floods and drought, were badly in the industry to use. hit by Cyclone Idai. Ndau festival has become an essential part of meeting the challenges in Chipinge: bringing the Event organisers provide experiences that bring people community together, raising awareness about what is together, and everyone in the industry can help to provide going on around them, harnessing the power of the arts vital leadership for the most important challenge of our in communicating the tools and skills to cope and make time. essential changes. This report is a benchmark, a point of reflection, and a We must also act, in whatever way we can – acknowledging rallying call. The content is expanded in the Vision:2025 the climate crisis, even if the flooding is not at our door yet - online Knowledge Hub, a comprehensive, dynamic and making changes, inspiring others, and actively contributing trusted source of information about sustainability for events to a future in which everyone can thrive. In the words of and the music industry. Share your information, contribute Greta Thunberg, “this is not a drill”. case studies or help to fund us. Any way you can, take We all need robust information to make good decisions action now. about the environmental performance of our events and companies. There are issues to tackle which require evidence-based approaches and solutions.