Friendly Festivals!

The festival season is now officially upon us, with Glastonbury taking place the other weekend, and this year they, and other festivals, have become more environmentally friendly than ever before.

Agreenerfestival.com, an advice website to help both festival organisers and revellers be as eco-friendly as possible, have this year awarded more of their Greener Festival Awards than ever. Here is a list of the most planet friendly festivals and what they are doing to help:

Latitude Festival, 17th-20th July – Latitude is held on the Suffolk coast and describes itself as ‘more than a music festival’, with music, comedy, theatre, cabaret, literature, art, film, poetry, dance and even a children’s area. Latitude boasts the world’s first fuel cell powered festival stage. They are also handing out camper’s kits as people arrive, containing recycling bags, using only biodegradable food packaging, plates, cups and cutlery, and supplying re-usable beer cups.

The Glade, 17th-21st July – The Glade is the UK’s largest festival with no sponsors, claiming to give you a break from the ‘real world’. Although it doesn’t give you details of its eco efforts all festivals awarded the Greener Festival Award have to meet certain criterions.

Summer Sundae Weekender, 8th-10th July – sister event to The Big Session Festival, Summer Sundae Weekender is now in its 7th year. This year they will be making every effort to be as eco-friendly as possible; recycling plastic bottles, cardboard, paper and glass with a company called the Complete Wasters. They will also be serving all pints in compostable glasses and camera film canisters will be given out for fag butts. Summer Sundae Weekender is also doing their bit to help after the festival by giving away 1000 energy saving light bulbs to festival goers. According to their website if only 50 of these bulbs are used for their full lifetime it will offset the festival’s 25 tons of carbon emissions.

Big Chill, 1st-3rd August – The Big Chill have teamed up with Sunrise Celebration (after Sunrise was washed out by flash floods in Somerset) and is doing its bit using 100% renewable energy, compost toilets and solar showers.

Croissant Neuf Summer Party, 15th-17th August – This festival bills itself as ‘Britain’s premier solar-powered music event’, using a 10KW PA system that runs on the sun’s energy.

Creamfields, 23rd-24th – In its 10th year, dance festival, Creamfields are working with Liftshare.com to encourage more environmentally friendly travel to and from the festival. They will also have a bar run on wind turbines and have a ‘tent donation station’, which will be put to good use, with any tents left behind from the event sent to parts of the world where they are needed most to provide shelter.

The Waveform Project, 12th-14th September – Waveform claims to be Britain’s first green dance festival. It will have composting toilets, eco talks and workshops and all the energy used will be from a renewable source.

Earthdance, 13th September – Earthdance is the largest synchronised dance event in the world. It is a ‘global dance festival for peace’ taking place in 300 locations in 60 countries, with half of all money raised going to good causes.

Biome Lifestyle fully supports these festivals and their efforts to ensure that they are as eco-friendly as they can be.