Music industry campaign group Agreenerfestival.com has published the results of a new survey conducted by Buckinghamshire New University which asked music fans what they thought about green issues at live music events.
The survey of 1407 festival goers across Europe was online on the Buckinghamshire New University website as well as websites in Holland and Finland. An email survey was used in Germany (and questions posed in those languages) and a website similar to 'survey monkey' was used in Finland. The online research was backed up with written questions and answers and 'face to face' interviews to ensure a wide demograph was reached.
The total numbers surveyed were 500 UK festival fans, nearly 600 fans in Finland and 330 fans in Germany and the Netherlands. This survey follows up on Agreenerfestival's first survey in 2006 which shows the green message is spreading in people recognising traditional areas like transport and waste, but since 2006 it seems less want the recycling policies implemented or feel that green issues influence whether or not they will attend a festival.
Agreenerfestival co-founder Ben Challis said, "In the last two years we have seen a significant rise in audience awareness of green issues, in particular the audience's own carbon footprint. Travel to and from festivals is something we all have to tackle now, looking at better public transport solutions as well as car sharing and other innovative solutions."
However Challis also revealed that there is still a significant number of festival goers both the UK and Europe that seem to be resistant to the environmental impact of festivals. Challis stated, "In fact some disagreed with the fact there were any negative impacts at all. In the UK 34% do not think CO2 emissions are a problem and 13% would not recycle." So it seems there is a long way to go in changing festival goer's opinions yet.
The survey reveals that 52% of music fans in the UK say they wouldn't pay more for greener events and and a whopping 64% say they wouldn't consider a festival's environmental policy before deciding to buy a ticket. Only 14% of European fans think about a festival's environmental impact when buying tickets and just 38% would pay more for a ticket to promote green policies.
Festival goers it seems just can't seem to stop making a mess, or stop going to those festivals which aren't bothered about the impact to the environment. A call for these festivals to be forced to have a green policy and limit their carbon footprint is clearly needed, so that people who aren't interested in green issues at festivals will still contribute to an improvement in the environment.
As usual it's left up to organisers to incentivise green policy, and already some festivals reward festival goers for clearing up sites - with refunds on plastic glasses or bags of waste.
Another recent study has shown another way in which festival goers aren't considering the environment. Reading Festival has been the subject of a recent study which shows that smoke levels soared to dramatic heights during last year's festival. Reading Borough Council officers were able to monitor air pollution during the August Bank Holiday event and revealed that smoke levels produced by festival goers increased 10-fold from an average of less than 100 microgrammes per cubic metre per hour to a massive 1,000, presumably caused by the high level of plastic in rubbish attendees burn in their fires. Once again, the festival organisers will have to enforce environmental policies if they want to stop their visitors polluting the environment.
Surprising then that those surveyed were aware of other environmental considerations. In the UK 80% considered noise at festivals had an environmental impact, and 82% thought waste had a negative impact, 56% thought festivals had a negative carbon footprint, 60% were worried about water, 53% were concerned with land damage and an impressive 84% thought travel and transport had a negative environmental impact.
74% of UK fans said that they would travel on public transport if it was included in the price of a ticket, and 80% of European fans, where more festivals have had public transport built into ticket price for years, were willing to use public transport.
Download, a large sized festival for rockers - people who aren't necessarily renowned for keeping tidy, won Agreenerfestival's 'Most Improved Festival Award' and made great efforts to reduce the festival's overall carbon footprint. The festival had fans using a Liftshare scheme, recycling 17.6 tonnes of drinks cups, and over 60 tonnes of waste last year. This year, Download 2008 is concentrating on more green programmes for transport and waste and is aiming to recycle everything that it uses on site. For more on Agreenerfestival's Awards for 2007 see here.
Buckinghamshire New University's Head of Programmes Teresa Moore says, "In the past few years festivals like Glastonbury, Download and the Isle of Wight Festival have worked hard to promote public transport and it now seems that the audience has digested this message and agrees fans want to use public transport but the UK's public transport infrastructure remains a concern."
It will also be these festivals, and others, who will crucially widen people's green perceptions in the coming year. The survey shows that although many festival organisers are trying to be as environmentally green as possible and launching various initiatives to achieve this, it's festival goers who are much less environmentally friendly than the festivals many of them attend.
The research also shows that 65% of UK music fans would still go to an event where their favourite band was playing even if the event was not environmentally friendly and this rises to 88% in Europe.
But it's not just the lure of a favourite band, it seems even the most sensible environmental actions of the traders at festivals are not appreciated, with only 39% of fans say that food stalls at festivals should encourage re-usable crockery and cutlery instead of disposables (although it's not clear if those surveyed wanted disposable compostable products) and 52% would be happy to pay a refundable £2 charge on beer cups - although 30% disagreed.
Those supporting these activities are actually down in numbers from the survey in 2006 (here) when more fans were ready to adopt recyclable utensils, cutlery and cups. European fans are very similar 38% saying stalls should use re-useable crockery and cutlery although only 36% supported deposits on cups but 41% were resistant to deposits in Europe.
Fortunately, it's the festival organisers of many of the UK's best loved festivals who are implementing green policy. As green initiatives become more common place at festivals, it is hoped that festivals are educating their visitors and hope they take notice. Hopefully this will mean in a further 2 years' time the percentage of festival goers recognising and being influenced by green principles will be much greater. You can do your bit by refusing to go to festivals that aren't interested in trying to clean up their environmental impact.
eFestivals is the only festivals website we are aware of that is carbon neutral and offsets its own carbon emissions.