Sustainability
Green by name
Green by nature
How we measure up
‘Betternotstop – More Than Music’ surveyed 100 UK music festivals and delved into their sustainability policies to see exactly what actions they were committed to. The below shows the results of their survey.
Less than half have a publicly available sustainability policy
Less than two thirds are delivering any form of social impact programm
Only 45 % have carbon offsetting measures in place
Green Events Co. is proud to already be delivering on all of the above suggested policies.
Publicly Available Sustainability Policy
GEC has a publicly available sustainability policy which is reviewed annually.
Social Impact Programmes
We work with our traders to collect surplus food and redistribute to benefit the communities where our events are held.
The scheme minimises the amount of waste being removed from festival sites and goes to help people in need.
Open Kitchen and Oxford Food Hub, this year’s beneficiaries, use salvaged food to supply meals for people struggling with food insecurity across Greater Manchester and Oxford. We ran this scheme at several events this Summer and saved tonnes of food from going to landfill. Let’s feed bellies not bins!
1286 kilos of food were salvaged in 2023 and this year, so far, we have helped salvage over 665kg of food.
The food salvaged included fresh veggies, falafel, salad, pulses, bread buns, frozen chips, fresh fish and more!
Carbon Offsetting Measures
We’re tackling climate change! We use a travel carbon calculator to calculate and record all our travel to the events that we work at to analyse the emissions for our journeys. Emissions are balanced by making donations to UK investment in renewable energy and reforestation in Kenya.
What did we do in 2024
Curate and provide food concessions at two exclusively Veggie and Vegan festivals.
All traders pledge to provide at least one Vegan or Veggie main meal.
Set up Sustainability WhatsApp groups to push out messages to traders on how they could improve their practises and encouraged them to work together and share their innovative sustainable ideas with each other for all events.
Work with power providers to reduce the amount of time generators were switched on and the amount of diesel being used.
We eliminated plastic bottles at all events in 2024, by only selling soft drinks and water in aluminium cans.
Collect and recycle all waste cooking oil at the end of the events.
Where possible, implement food compost bins at our festivals and events
What our traders are doing
- Using organic coffee beans for plantation sustainability.
- Using certified compostable cups and lids.
- Selling carton and canned water which carries a significantly lower carbon footprint that plastic water bottles.
- Coffee grounds collected after event and recycled and turned into soap!
- Working plastic free.
- Selling organic and fairtrade ingredients.
- Sourcing locally.
Looking ahead
- Encourage traders to offer a discount to customers who provide their own cups
- Provide increased vegan and veggie options for all events.
- Reduce power requirements – use LED, solar other renewables.
- Include an affordable meal option or children’s portion on menus to reduce cost and waste.
- Increase the number of events Eat Well Manchester are involved
- Ensure all events have a food salvage operation in place
- Source responsibly, sustainably, locally.
- Encourage event organisers to implement food compost bins
Partners for change
Ecolibrium is a live events industry response to the climate crisis – a community of events, festivals, suppliers, artists and music companies taking action to reduce travel impacts and invest in climate solutions. www.ecolibrium.earth
Better Not Stop was launched as a business with the express purpose of making the world a better place – to bring people together so we can create a better future for people and the planet.
Better Not Stop carry out the ‘More Than Music’ report which looks at publicly available data, as well as insights from industry experts, for 100 UK Music Festivals. It explores sustainability and impact in the UK music festival industry as it currently stands.
www.betternotstop.com
We work with Eat Well MCR who provide freshly prepared meals to people in need across Greater Manchester.
At a select number of our local events for the past two years, we have worked with Eat Well to action ‘Meals for Manchester,’ where customers were given the option to donate £1 when purchasing a main meal.
In 2024 Eat Well MCR raised over £1800 which helped delivery 900 meals to families living in temporary accommodation, women taking refuge in sheltered accommodation and families experiencing food poverty and inequality.
Open Kitchen is Manchester’s leading sustainable catering company. Profits from our business go into providing food and supplying meals for people struggling with food insecurity across Greater Manchester.
www.openkitchenmcr.co.uk
Kendal Calling is committed to limiting our overall impact on the environment and are taking actions to reduce it. We have created a trader pledge which demonstrates your commitment to supporting us with this.
www.kendalcalling.co.uk/sustainability
Carbon Footprint Ltd share a common responsible goal to track and reduce carbon emissions ‘at source’ as much as possible and to compensate for unavoidable emissions – via carbon offsetting – to render companies’ activities to be net zero carbon/carbon neutral. With this action, companies protect both environment and their own businesses.
www.carbonfootprint.com
Reduce
Encourage traders to offer incentives to customers who bring their own food containers.
Re-use
Encourage all staff to make use of the reusable water bottle provided to them by Green Events Co.
Recycle
Ensure traders purchase consumables that are recyclable and then recycle them accordingly
Prohibited items.
- Plastic cups and plastic lids
- Plastic straws
- Plastic cutlery or stirrers – oil or plant based
- Single serve sachets of salt, pepper, sugar or sauce
- Expanded polystyrene or plastics of any type including PC, PP, PET, rPET, HPDE or LDPE Glass bottles
- Black bin bags
- Single use plastic bags (with the exception of clear bin bags for waste only)
- ‘Bad’ Glitter
What to use instead.
- Compostable paper and cardboard cups, reusable cups and mugs. All concessions must adhere to the compostable serve-ware and packaging guidelines (simply ‘biodegradable’ is not acceptable)
- Wooden Cutlery and stirrers
- Compostable paper, card and bagasse plates, bowls and boxes
- Paper straws
- Multi-serve condiments
- Clear bin bags
- Biodegradable glitter