Festivals and events
This pages shows the environmental impact of an average festival using the graphs and efficiency indicators in the Envirometer.
The first graph shows the impact of a city festival. Business transport includes transporting employees and the visiting artists. Freight transport includes the kilometres driven by suppliers. For festivals, the themes with the largest impact are:
- Visitor transport
- Electricity (generally produced by diesel generators)
- Freight transport
- Waste (especially at national festivals, including campsites)
The next graph shows the environmental impact of an average large-scale cultural event, with visitors from at home and abroad. The main difference with the average city festival is the larger impact of waste and the smaller impact of visitor transport.
Indicators
Indicator averages have also been calculated for this project. The data variation is large, which is understandable given the significant difference in the facilities on offer for food, drinks, accommodation and the programme itself at the different festivals.
| Indicator | City festival | Large festival | unit |
| Electricity per visitor per day | 0.22 | 1.15 | kWh/visitor |
| Diesel (generator) per visitor per day | 0.073 | 0.37 | liter/visitor |
| Water per visitor per day | 2.4 | 11.7 | liter/visitor |
| Waste separation | 24 | 17 | % of kg |
| Waste per visitor | 140 | 1640 | gram/visitor |
| Visitor transport | 20 | 30 | km/visitor |
| % PT+bike+walking visitors | 90 | 55 | % of km |
| CO2 per visitor per day | 2 | 8,4 | kg CO2/visitor |
Reduction potential
Most opportunities for reduction are in:
- Improving waste separation
- Reducing waste by using returnable cups
- Creating monostreams for waste (including one type of plastic for all disposable products)
- Using less electricity and lower peaks
- Cleaner electricity (smaller generators, (green) grid power)
- Less transport by purchasing locally.
An average festival can thus easily save 20% on its environmental impact per visitor.
Source of these average Envirometers
The average Envirometers for festivals have been calculated on the basis of two sustainable projects with fifteen participating festivals. These projects were carried out by the Stimular Foundation in collaboration with Syntens.