The team behind AGreenerFestival.com are responsible for the award, which was unveiled in 2007 and in keeping with the website's ethos aims to promote greener practices and sustainability for the festival circuit.
Six English festivals, one Scottish, one Italian, two American and five Australian events are the first recipients of the coveted 2009 Greener Festival Award, acknowledging the events' efforts to reduce their environmental impact.
The festivals are (in alphabetical order):
Atlanta Jazz Festival
Bluesfest
The Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival
Download
The Falls Festival
Firegathering
The Glastonbury Festival
Isle of Wight Festival
Peats Ridge
Rototom Reggae Sunsplash
Southbound
The Sunrise Celebration
T in the Park
Wireless Festival
WomAdelaide
In the UK, The Sunrise Celebration, Download, Firegathering, the Glastonbury Festival, Wireless and the Isle of Wight Festival all were praised by environmental group A Greener Festival for their green policies and on-site activities whilst in Scotland T-in-the-Park was congratulated for its innovative approach to water use and engaging with the audience to reduce the festival's greenhouse gas emissions - the massive Rototom Reggae Sunsplash in Italy was similarly praised.
In America, the Atlanta Jazz Festival and the 80,000 capacity Bonnaroo Festival were both praised by the award organisers for coherent and effective environmental best practices whilst in Australia the five Festivals who received the award were Peats Ridge, The Falls Festival, Bluesfest, WomAdelaide and Southbound were all congratulated for their efforts.
The Greener Award is based on a 56 point checklist which covers green office policies, energy use and carbon reduction, travel and transport, support for green initiatives, waste management, recycling, water use and environmental protection and noise pollution and the Awards organisers have a team of environmental auditors who visit festivals to assess environmental good practice and effective green policies.
A Greener Festival co-founder Ben Challis said, "This is the third year of our awards scheme and it is clear that our participating event organisers are doing more and more to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, reduce waste and move towards a carbon neutral infrastructure. The key issue now is working with the audience to reduce travel emissions which can sometimes make up almost three quarters of a festivals' carbon footprints. Our auditors have noticed that more and more festivals are starting to work with the audience to promote sustainable lifestyles the team that came back from the Isle of Wight raved about the really clever initiatives there".
He added, "In the US the Bonnaroo Festival was praised for its innovative education programmes and both Glastonbury and T-in-the-Park both work hard to promote green issues by adopting new and improved practices each and every year, and by working to publicise new initiatives. We are also delighted with the new Award trophy designed and made by students at Keswick School in Cumbria which combines an attractive design with recycled plastics, CDs and Wellington boots, thousands of pairs of which are sadly left behind at festivals."
These are the first of the 2009 Awards to be announced. There will be a second announcement of further awards which will be made in September 2009 when the UK and US festival season ends.
This festival award actually has some meaning. Unlike other festival awards, its based on a fair comparison by people who have actually attended the festivals being voted for or against, and isn't based on marketing through emails begging for votes, a perhaps self interested short-list of festivals to vote for, or people voting for or against festivals they haven't attended - through all these things other awards are completely meaningless.
Recently, Julie's Bicycle, the organisation that helps the music industry to reduce its carbon emissions, launched an online tool to help festivals measure, analyse, report and act on their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as part of their post-event review.
The IG (Industry Green) Tools are available free of charge to any creative sector business in the UK, and provide a customised, tailored approach to measuring and recording annual GHG emissions for festivals and outdoor events, venues and office spaces.
The Greener Festival Awards scheme recommends its applicants make use of the IG Tool for festivals if they need help or guidance in measuring their carbon impacts - a key awards criterion.
The IG Tools also aim to further unite the music industry by contributing to climate-impact benchmarking. The tools are also key to the process for businesses seeking an IG mark, an 'eco-label' certifying creative organisations (or suppliers) who have a demonstrable commitment to carbon emission reduction and environmental responsibility.
Julie's Bicycle has IG Tools in development to help measure GHGs from touring, recording studios, retail, distribution, and manufacturing facilities. Continuing updates are available online at www.juliesbicycle.com.