the award 'A GREENER FESTIVAL 2007'

WWW.AGREENERFESTIVAL.COM LAUNCH AWARD SCHEME

Be it the £250,000 landfill bill generated by Download Festival or Michael Eavis' barn full of discarded Glastonbury Wellington boots, the environmental impact of Britain's burgeoning festival scene are plain to see.

Whether driven by an ethical stand point or the financial bottom line, this year's festivals will address the issues of the environment as never before and now the team behind independent website AGreenerFestival.com have established a voluntary award scheme to acknowledge individual festivals commitment to environmentally friendly practices.

The award A GREENER FESTIVAL 2007 will be based around the twin aims of promoting greener practices and promoting sustainability. It will be available to any festival which can meet the requirements of a sixty question check list and commit to an A Z of green priorities.

AGreenerFestival.com has been at the centre of the movement for environmental considerate music events since its launch last summer. Their work has included contributions to special features in The Times, Independent and industry magazine IQ, a seminar at the International Live Music Conference and work with the European Festival Organisers Association to promote best practice within the industry.

Having helped drive awareness of the environment in the live music sector, the Greener Festival team now hope to encourage and reward those festivals that deliver more environmentally friendly music events.

A Greener Festival co-founder Ben Challis: "The Greener Festival 2007 award is to promote greening practices at music festivals. We dont expect festivals to be able to meet every single point on our check list but they must reach a minimum standard. They need at the very least to have a coherent transport and travel policy promoting public transport; they must consider ways to reduce waste and pollution; they must have recycling on site and they must protect the environment and protect wildlife."

Challis added: "We also expect festivals to aspire to a 26 point action plan our A-Z of going green and by 2008 we really do hope that all UK festivals will have basic green policies and practices in place. Ultimately we expect all festivals to aim for a leave no trace philosophy where their festival is totally green and leaves no impact on the environment."

The questionnaire was drawn up by the team behind Agreenerfestival.com with additional research by students at Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College. A new logo for the award will be based on a drawing of the red kite, milvus milvus, a threatened bird of prey recently reintroduced into England and Scotland from Wales and Europe where it survived near extinction and the logo has been designed by agreenerfestival website designer Luke Westbury.

News of participating festivals and details of a special Green Excellence prize will follow shortly.