Isle of Wight Festival Eco Action

[Andrew_iow]

At the beginning of 2008, John Giddings, organiser and promoter of the Isle of Wight Festival, made a decision to make it a more ecologically aware and sustainable event, and since then, he has teamed up with environmental consultants to the music industry, Proper Productions, to look at ways of running the festival in a more ethical and responsible way.

The result is a commitment to a five year programme of positive actions that will leave a lasting legacy for the future of the island with initiatives such as long term conservation projects; implementation of local business partnerships in a vow to "keep it local"; plus a year on year improvement in the festival's operations to limit the impact of over 55,000 visitors.

"With the Isle of Wight Council recently announcing their vision of creating an eco island and becoming carbon neutral by 2020, this was definitely the year to put our money when our mouth is and make a positive difference. Obviously with a festival of this size it would be unrealistic for us to say that from now on the event will be run with zero impact on the environment but more realistic and believable for us to say we are committed to ongoing improvement, with a long term vision to not only reduce our impact but also give something back to the island that hosts our event every June"