Earlier this month Download Festival, one of the Vision:2025 festivals pledged to tackle their CO2 footprint with Powerful Thinking, announced the major improvements being made to this year’s festival to make it the greenest Download yet.
At last year’s festival there was a decrease in the overall carbon footprint by 96 tonnes of CO2e compared to 2016. For this year they’ve introduced carbon balancing by adding £1 to the cost of all parking passes, which will be donated to the charity Energy Revolution, who balance travel by investing in renewable energy projects. This is on top of all our other current travel initiatives with Big Green Coach, Liftshare and shuttle buses to encourage the reduction of traffic coming to the site.
Last year Download received a 4-star Creative Green Certification from Julie’s Bicycle and this year the Promoter, Festival Republic, are raising the bar in their commitment to environmental protection with the introduction of their first ever Eco Campsite with Greenpeace UK.
Last year they decreased the overall waste at the festival by 61% compared to 2016 and introduced reusable cups, resulting in a half a million single use cups being saved! The Deposit Return System has seen over 100,000 bottles collected and recycled since 2016.
To ensure 2018 is the most environmentally friendly yet, they’ve increased the number of campsite recycling points and food traders are not allowed to use single use plastic cutlery or food containers – and they are ahead of the curve in having banned plastic straws since 2016.
Victoria Chapman, Sustainability Coordinator at Festival Republic says:
“Download fans have been shown to be extremely environmental conscious and I am delighted that this has been reflected in the achievement of a 4 out of 5 star award, in only the second year of undertaking Creative Green Certification.”
Read the full the story on the Download website.