Last year's festival saw 55,000 people grooving and celebrating the 10th anniversary of this famous music festival, and it also saw the first year's involvement of the Eco Action team in a joint venture between the festival organiser John Giddings and the Eco Action Partnership (formerly part of Proper Productions). As part of our five year plan to (E)con-vert the festival into a more ethical, sustainable and environmentally aware event, we continue into our second year in conjunction with John, Caroline and the team at Solo and are starting to plan out this year's campaigns.
Below is a list of some our eco-achievements for the Isle of Wight festival 2008, and details so far about what's happening this year.
Transport
Some of you took the opportunity of using the nationwide Liftshare scheme, which offers a secure and safe way of filling spaces in your car to get yourself and others to and from the festival. In February 2009 Liftshare celebrated it’s 300,000 member joining up to share journeys which a massive in the tonnage of CO2 produced, and there will be another link set up on the main site to enable this to happen again.
If you opted for pubic transport, then there were extra ferries and buses laid on to cope with the increased amount of foot passengers.
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Once on site, the council provided lots of secure bike racks for those of you who chose to bring your own cycles, and there were bikes on hire from London Bikes for those who just fancied a trip out to see the local area. These were in constant use both on and off the site, and this year we're looking to expand this into a joint venture with the Isle of Wight council, putting together a guide of nearby attractions and recognised cycle paths which might tempt you to leave the site and have a look round the island.
Waste
There is always a tremendous amount of rubbish generated by any event, and as well as minimising the amount of non-recyclable waste to come onto the site in the first place, and advising on the right sort of packaging to be used by the concessions stands, a good strategy is needed to both collect the waste and deal with it in the most environmentally friendly way.
Total waste collected went down from 184 tonnes in 2007 to 169.36 tonnes last year. Of this, 90 tonnes were landfilled in 2007, but this was reduced to 35 tonnes last year.
121 tonnes of this waste generated was sent to the new gasification plant on the island instead of landfill, which meant that the total amount going to a hole in the ground was.
Gasification is a viable alternative to general landfill, and only uses the waste that can't be recycled through the normal routes. Burning the waste at high temperatures generates energy that can be used to power around 2,000 local homes and businesses, and unlike normal incinerators, it leaves behind a very small amount of solid waste rather than the normal ash. Our waste from the festival made up some of the first commercially accepted loads.
We would like to improve this year on the mountain of waste that was left over in some of the campsites, and better signage and siting of waste and recycling bins learnt from last year's layout will help to make this better this year.
Recycling
There were a lot of tents that were left behind on the Monday when the big clear up happened, and those that weren't too badly trashed were collected after the festival by the local scout groups. They had the lovely task of sorting through them, and by the end of the clear up, over 500 tents and 600 sleeping bags had been collected, and the more usable ones filled an entire container, which was then delivered and distributed to worthwhile causes. All good news. However, the problem with this is that a lot of the aid agencies won't accept two man tents for use and distribution, so it is becoming harder to place the equipment that is left behind each year at all the various festivals and events. We are working on a solution that we can share with other organisations to cut down the amount of waste left behind in the first place.
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Recycling bins were prominent on all parts of the site, encouraging people to dispose of their waste in the right collection bins. This year we aim to increase the number of larger points that can be found in the campsites themselves.
Energy - Wind Power
The 2.5km mobile wind turbine, kindly supplied and run by Proven Energy, was located behind the BT tent, and was responsible for powering the free mobile phone charging points in the tent. It is estimated that for every kilowatt of energy generated on the site there was a calculable saving of 0.43kg of carbon to the atmosphere. We are in discussions as to how to improve the size and efficiency of this free source of energy for this year’s event, and with the data and wind speed now known from last year’s festival, we are looking at placing it in an optimum wind-generating part of the site. Proven energy also work closely with the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA).
Energy - Biomass
A small percentage of the generators used to run the festival were powered by bio diesel, which was UK sourced. We intend to improve on this figure next year, and are negotiating a secure and steady supply from a more local source. Bio fuels are a contentious issue, with an argument against land usage for growing fuel in direct competition to food, which is why it is important to be sure of the provenance of anything that is used at the festival.
One of the problems and limitations we encountered last year was not an unwillingness to take advantage of the fuel, but that most manufacturers of the generators will not guarantee machinery beyond a certain percentage of bio-diesel used. We will be working to come up with an equitable solution to this problem this year on site.
Energy - Solar
Behind the main stage, the EcoAction tent, and the press tent next door, were both exclusively powered by solar panels supplied jointly by local IOW solar experts, Engenius and by panels purchased by the festival. Again, plans for this year include scaling this up to provide power to run more of the backstage offices, and looking at the feasibility of using it on some of the music stages and front of house in coming years.
Food
The Taste of the Wight food stall was a big hit backstage, supplying locally produced food in a trial run for this year, when we intend to be able to offer more of this fine fodder front of house as well. Using local food not only cuts out the need for excessive food miles and extra energy use embedded into some foods from further away, it also encourages responsible use of seasonally available fruit and veg, and supports smaller businesses on the island.
The artist and crew catering will also aim to be using as much locally supplied produce as possible this year, and fairtrade products will be purchased to provide the vast lake of tea and coffee served to keep the whole festival running smoothly.
Conservation and local projects
Bees, Bees, Bees
There are serious problems with both populations of Bumble bees and Honey bees. The British Bumble bees have their own issues with loss of habitat directly through loss of hedgerows, and a lack of consistent food sources through monoculture and intensive agriculture. But it’s the honeybees that have been receiving a lot of interest recently due to an outbreak of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), which threatens their very existence. A virus attacks a single bee, which then returns to the hive and infects the entire colony, killing all the other bees. Although there are suggestions as to what may cause CCD, urgent research needs to be undertaken by DEFRA to understand the problem and suggest ways of combating its spread before it’s too late.
We are committed to assisting this research in any way that we can. The good people at Island 2000, with the aid of the local scout groups who were helping us at the festival, managed to raise some money towards a research project looking into the decline of the local bee populations. This has now been match funded by the Environment Agency, and there is now a plan to implement the research project, on the island, by next year's festival. This is as a direct result of your interest and donations. More details of the progress will appear on the website in the run up to the next festival under the heading Give Bess a Chance.
We are proud to announce that for the second year running we have become official corporate partners with Gift to Nature, a local based organisation that manages and funds environmental projects all over the island, and there are four projects that we are continuing to support and help to promote.
There are ecologically important areas of peat which are in danger of drying out, and, as peat acts as a natural carbon sink, it can release damaging greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.
The project at Alverstone helps to keep the area hydrated and so reduce the risk of this happening. It is also the site where it is hoped to re-introduce the indigenous Black Poplar tree. These trees have all but vanished from the island, and there are now only three left. But cuttings have been taken from these and are steadily growing ready to be planted along the water’s edge.
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English Elm trees have also been ravaged by dutch elm disease, but there has been a planting campaign of resistant trees on the Island using a type of tree called LUTECE.
There are also plans to use a new tree in the future that can not only withstand the onslaught of the elm bark beetle which spread the fungus, but which also resembles the shape of the mighty English Elm.
There is also a healthy population of red squirrels which has so far resisted the invasion of its grey cousins, and we intend to help with its continued isolation and therefore ecological protection.
Artist support
Many of the acts performing expressed a positive opinion of what we are all trying to achieve eco-wise at the festival, and gave messages of support to us.
KT Tunstall and Starsailor among many of the artists who wanted to wear our 'Give Bees a Chance' t-shirts, and donated signed copies. These, and other t-shirts, will be available as a website auction nearer the festival to raise more money for the bees.
Conclusions……..
We are continuing to build on the relationships we started to develop with everyone on the island for this year's event, including working closely with the council alongside their Eco Island efforts.
We are currently evaluating figures and statistics from this year's festival and are looking to generate a carbon audit of the event as a whole, which will give us a better idea of which areas to better concentrate our future efforts.
We have also become involved with an organisation called Julie's Bicycle, which groups together other similar companies involved in music in some form or another, and is a forum in which we share best practice and lessons learned within this industry and festival and event production.
Talks are also in progress to initiate a tailor made carbon off-setting scheme for the festival, which will see money donated through a registered gold standard off setting scheme already established, as well as seeing some of the money going to conservation projects on the island.
Our thanks go out to the many media stations who showed a genuine interest in what we were doing and gave us the valuable oxygen of publicity for our eco-ideas.
The conservation and bee projects already started with Gift to Nature and Island 2000 are ongoing and again we will update this further here during the coming months.
Many thanks also to those who emailed and contacted us with both their opinions and messages of support for the Eco Action initiatives.
Looking forward to seeing you all in June.
Mark, Rick and Juliet.
Eco Action Partnership Ltd.
Contact us
Tel : 0208 241 4411
mark.ward@ecoactionpartnership.com
juliet.ross-kelly@ecoactionpartnership.com
richard.storey@ecoactionpartnership.com
www.ecoactionpartnership.com
With special thanks to
Jim Fawcett (Isle of Wight Council), Sue Cracknell(Isle of Wight Council), Laurie Tenant (Engenius), Ian Boyd (Island 2000), Sam and Martin (Gift to Nature), Steve Squires (Proven Energy), Malcolm Cox, Finian Day-Lewis (Photographer)