AGF Insider: Camille Guitteau tell us the two perspective shifts that could leapfrog us to the next chapter
Welcome to AGF Insider, our insightful series where we bring you monthly interviews with industry experts.
Each month we catch up with an industry leader in the sustainability world to find the current trends and best practices
This month, we catch up with Camille Guitteau, co-founder and managing director at Bye Bye Plastic Foundation.
What are the best practices that you are seeing give the best results?
Truly, the best results we ever witnessed come about are created thanks to collective motion, unified commitments. Whether through the Eco-Rider (now on its 2.0 chapter) which thousands of artists & DJs adopted as new-default sustainable touring practices, or the Zero Plastic Club: France which saw 24 nightclubs manage to eliminate short of 11 tonnes of plastics yearly, it just really just boils down to that. Once we realise we can do this together as a group, as a collective of humans with shared vision, and as a professional industry, achievements can really explode their own glass ceiling.
What trends are you seeing this year?
Well, as we’re currently at the turn of ‘26 I’ll take a hit at looking with a prospective lens into the year ahead. It is clear the past couple years showed continuous hardship for the music events sector at large. Endless mergers, unwelcome alliances blurring the lines between big money and underground culture, evermore inescapable and settled touring calendars and negotiations, seemingly closed off the dialogue pipelines, and pushed certain stakeholders to retreat into inaction, sadly giving space for the same voices to get front and center, in a dynamic that’s not without reminder of our social media algorithmic feedback loops. That said, this recent period it feels like, in an interesting echo to the current societal landscape at large, a big shift in priorities is well-overdue, and is bubbling under. And 2026 might well be the year this values, action and priority shift bursts out in the open. That’s my wishful horoscope-ish prediction at least!
What are the obstacles?
Do I really need to get into it…^^? I think the public debate is starting to frame them very consciously independently already. No one will buy themselves off of the climate crisis, and those roadblocks are starting to show so sharply it’s becoming impossible to ignore. The business-as-usual narrative is starting to crackle from all angles/corners. Which is why those with an interest in the status quo (whatever position they might hold, public/private/entertainment sector they might be in) are reinforcing their hold (FR: “serrer la vis”). But in a way when you zoom out it feels like this is a relatively “normal” pace to the cycle of societal progress. Resistance to learnings, denial, over-confidence in the promises from erroneous kick-started paths, and involuntary blindness to long-term externalities.
Change is neurologically HARD for humans; it takes bravery, honesty and a dash of curiosity to overcome our very natural limitation and look beyond business-as-usual scenarios.
What’s the next big thing in sustainability in events?
Making solar and in general green power a default is the most exciting next big thing that’s really progressing to new heights in 2025 ; notably thanks to the incredible work of AGF’s very own Claire! This topic is finally shifting from side-story to default setting. Claire O’ Neill & Dale Vince’s GridFaeries pilots (Massive Attack, LIDO,...) and trailblazing companies like ShowPower are starting to prove that diesel-free shows are absolutely not a utopian pilot, now powering main stages and arenas fully on batteries, and building with grid-tied renewables and smart energy plans rather than generators.
What would be the biggest game changer from your perspective?
I reckon that’d be a global Cultural shift leading the events sector to reconsider the way it is building and creating.
After years of being at the heart of this industry, observing and discussing its behaviours, sparking conversations with executives and founders, bar managers, production teams, suppliers and allies, in virtually every position across the scale, I firmly come to believe that there’s 2 perspective shifts that could leapfrog us to the next chapter securing events environmental resilience:
A shift from short-term to mid-term view. But hear me out on how to do this! This should be achieved through point 2
Redirecting even just ¼ of the immense creative power currently injected into Marketing & Production strategies, towards new financial architectures/strategies that are promoting this long-term resilience.
Keep an eye out for next month's edition of AGF Insider, where we'll bring you more expert perspectives and fresh ideas!
