UK: Big Green Coach, the largest UK events travel company, was named ‘Green Supplier of the Year’ at last week’s Festival Supplier Awards. The accolade recognises BGC’s sustainable practices, services and improvements with The Secret Garden Party Festival (SGP) and acknowledges its contribution to sustainability at over 30 of the UK’s most popular festivals in 2015.
The ceremony recognises the achievements and hard work of outdoor event suppliers, celebrating the ‘behind-the-scenes’ teams that are the life force of any successful festival.
Big Green Coach was shortlisted against strong competition with the judges commenting that they “demonstrated a thorough understanding and commitment to sustainability. Impressive information was supplied and they made a real impact in terms of messaging with wide-scale reach.”
Big Green Coach used a package of measures that resulted in the highest coach conversion rate the Secret Garden Party has had year on year. By positioning coach travel as a natural extension of the festival, their partnership has seen the subtle instillation of behavioural change across SGP festivalgoers. Operational efficiencies were also applied such as keeping seat utilisation as high as possible and developing carbon efficient travel routes that fit around audience demands. Green travel incentives such as a rainforest sponsorship scheme, in-festival discounts and low-cost fares were delivered with messaging that ultimately made festivalgoers empowered to make a positive difference to the environment.
Big Green Coach Director Danny Newby said: “This is a wonderful achievement for us. The environment sits at the foundation of Big Green Coach and we’re delighted to have achieved such a great accolade, especially considering the tough competition we were against.
“Audience travel emissions to music venues are the single biggest contributor to the music industry’s environmental impact. It accounts for almost 70% of the festival sector’s total emissions. Big Green Coach travel is almost eight times more environmentally friendly than taking a car and we continually commit to making festival coach travel more appealing and convenient to festivalgoers. We also work with our festival partners to understand their audiences and overcome challenges they face in converting drivers to more sustainable travel and we’re delighted to have our hard work recognised.”
Nick Bateson of Secret Garden Party commented: “Secret Garden Party is fully committed to environmental alternatives. By working with Big Green Coach we have been able to align a great service for our customers with our environmental policies. They are clearly as passionate about sustainability within the festival industry as we are.
“I’m excited about our collaboration going forward because we are looking to improve our offerings and build on our past results and strategies. Together we want to continue to create an impact on our audience and encourage sustainable choices that we hope will be carried even beyond the festival.”
Big Green Coach
