UK: Energy Revolution, the festival sustainability initiative, has been awarded charity status. The pioneering project turns fossil fuel festival ‘travel miles’ into 100% clean renewable energy.
Energy Revolution has already balanced three million festival miles to date, investing in 100% clean renewable energy through its partnerships with Converging World in India and the Bristol Energy Co-op in the UK.
This has been achieved thanks to its festival partners encouraging audiences to balance their travel miles, and through the Supplier Member Scheme to help industry suppliers account for, and balance, their event-related travel.
Becoming a registered charity is a significant milestone for Energy Revolution as it seeks to scale up the project and help lead the industry towards a low-carbon future. The festival-goers choosing to balance millions of travel miles will now be able to Gift Aid their donations, making for an even brighter future for the project.
The ideas behind Energy Revolution were developed by a group of committed individuals striving to account for and mitigate festival-related carbon emissions, acknowledging the environmental impact of their work and future-proofing the industry for a low-carbon economy.
Ben Robinson, Director of Kendal Calling and an Energy Revolution trustee, said: “This is a momentous occasion for Energy Revolution and a chance to celebrate the three million travel miles balanced since its inception in 2015. But it’s the next 30 million miles that really matter. We want the festival industry to use its pioneering and caring spirit to help tackle climate change by balancing every festival travel mile, every year. Kendal Calling is proud to be part of Energy Revolution, and hopes that soon, all UK festivals will be joining us”.
Toby Short of Rock City Crew, one of the project’s Supplier Members, said: “Rock City provide stage and site crew to some of the greenest festivals in the UK, but we don’t just want to keep up with their environmental initiatives, we want to help lead the way with them. That’s why, as well as having our own solar panels producing green energy, we choose to measure, account for and balance our company’s travel miles with Energy Revolution. We look forward to seeing more of the companies and clients we work with joining us to help fuel the energy revolution.”
Mo Jones of TheTicketSellers said: “We have enjoyed working closely with our partners to make it easy for audiences to balance their travel miles at the same time as buying their festival tickets. We want to thank the festivals who have committed to the Energy Revolution project with us. This feels like just the beginning of a special project to transform the public’s approach to their festival travel and we hope to bring it to many more of our partners in the coming year”.
Abi Edgar, Energy Revolution Project Coordinator, said: “Ours is an industry built on endurance, creativity and commitment to the cause – it’s this approach that’s going to be essential in the fight against climate change. It’s only through everyone coming together on this issue, that we’ll be able to keep the party going”.
