Joe GallopBristol-based promoter Team Love has released a sustainability report on last year’s AGF-certified Love Saves The Day (LSTD) festival (cap. 30,000).
Now in its 12th year, 2023 saw Love Saves The Day return to Ashton Court for its second edition at that location, where its sustainability practices were externally assessed by A Greener Future (AGF). The organisation attended the festival and calculated the full carbon footprint of the event, awarding it ‘A Greener Festival 2023 – Commended Status’.
The new report documents the findings and challenges encountered, while also setting goals for the 2024 event that will take place on the May bank holiday weekend, 25-26 May.
Some of Team Love’s practices included the banning of single-use plastic, including glitter as part of the Drastic on Plastic campaign.
The promoter also partnered again with Music Declares Emergency, using the No Music on a Dead Planet pledge as a key communication point for artists, attendees and the festival.
The report shares the environmental impact data it collected and explores on-site infrastructure and services including waste, energy, catering, toilets and water. As for transport, Team Love provided a subsidised shuttle bus travel which was carbon-balanced with ecolibrium, with 58% of festival attendees choosing to take the Love Bus to Ashton Court.
Some goals set for the 2024 Love Saves event involve a focus on increasing food sustainability credentials with food traders, incorporating more theatrical elements to waste initiatives to improve engagement, with an aim to increase the recycling rate by 7%.
LSTD director Tom Paine said, “It has been great to continue our documentation of our sustainability practices for Love Saves The Day, these reports continue to be a real learning process for ourselves as a company. We realise we are only at the beginning of exploring the impact that we have across our events and also how we can not only negate these impacts but also encourage the positive connections and behaviour amongst our audiences, staff and suppliers that we hope continues to expand after the events themselves.
“We hope that by publishing this work and being as transparent as we can in doing so, we not only hold ourselves to account and give us targets to improve each year, but we also help to normalise this kind of work across all festivals and show that any event, big or small, can also undertake these reports and look to improve year-on-year in a positive way.”
The report can be found here.