This excerpt originates from an article by by Ted van Hooff on the Circular Festivals’ website, read the entire piece here.

While festivals are generally associated with a young and forward thinking audience, they still have a negative impact on the environment. The combination of large crowds, intensive energy use and the visible aftereffect of waste from disposable products ensures a harmful impact on their surroundings and the climate. More and more festival organizations feel like this should not have to be this way. Now, in the European partnership of the Green Deals Circular Festivals, European festival organizations are coming together to create their own set of standards to make circular and sustainable festivals the norm in Europe.

Green Deal Circular Festivals (GDCF) stands for a future-proof, circular and climate neutral festival industry. The festivals that participate in this Green Deal have committed themselves to achieving circularity by 2025. To reach this ambitious goal, the GDCF focuses on sustainability on six topics: energy, food and drinks, plastics, resource efficiency, travel and transportation and water. CO2-reduction is an integral part of all these topics, as CO2-reduction and circularity have an unmistakable interaction. The more circular a festival is, the less CO2 it will emit and the other way around. Through Green Deal Circular Festivals, the government of the Netherlands supports participating festivals by providing a platform on which they can connect as a collaborating and mutually inspiring community.

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