WORLDWIDE: A decade after the inception of the non-profit organisation A Greener Festival, the Greener Festival Awards have been restructured and relaunched, alongside a new Associate Membership for events and the wider industry.
Over 300 festivals have been assessed for the awards worldwide since 2007 across five continents, ranging from Glastonbury, Øya, We Love Green and Shambala (Europe), to Bonnaroo and Lightning in a Bottle (US), to Falls Festival (Australia) to Rockin’ the Daisies (SA).
In 2015, A Greener Festival took a year out from running the Awards to restructure and create more comprehensive tools for assessing and supporting events.
“When A Greener Festival began 10 years ago we were trying to raise awareness about how to reduce the environmental impact of festivals,” said Claire O’Neill, Co-Founder of A Greener Festival. “The new process for the awards goes beyond promoting best practice and events successes, but also helps organisers to understand, plan and improve their entire events sustainability.”
The new awards procedure still includes a festival self assessment with supporting documentation, but this now reflects the requirements of an Environmental Impact Assessment. Rather than submit a new application each year, repeat applicants will build on their initial assessments, set targets and monitor progress. The unique onsite assessment from an AGF environmental auditor will still take place during each event.
To carry out these assessments A Greener Festival have developed formal training for their environmental auditors, the first of which are to be delivered in London and Manchester this coming spring.
Claire O’Neill went on to say: “The awards may be more challenging as a result of the additional requirements, but we feel this is coupled with a more valuable service for participants who stand to gain not only recognition for their achievements, but also a framework for understanding, managing and improving the sustainability of their events. The overarching objective is to lower the impact of events, adapt to the changing environment, and raise the skills of the people within the industry to achieve that goal.”
A Greener Festival can provide support to help produce Environmental Impact Assessments and other supporting services, but strongly advocate that events have the skills and knowledge in-house to do this themselves. Advice and support about doing this is freely available. Environmental Impact Assessments from other reliable third party sources are also welcomed and accepted.
Additionally, Associate Membership of A Greener Festival is now available to events, individuals and organisations who want to connect to share ideas, services and innovations, and at the same time support the work that A Greener Festival do. This is open to all who adhere to the AGF Code of Conduct, and share the aim to improve event sustainability.
All successful award applicants automatically become Associate Members of A Greener Festival.
