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FESTIVAL CARBON FOOTPRINTS

new insight into festival carbon footprinTS

Key findings show when a more complete account of scope 3 emissions is included the average festival carbon footprint shows:

  • Audience travel closer to 41% carbon footprint (compared to commonly quoted 80%)

  • Wider travel inc. production, traders, artists closer to 58%

  • Food and drink responsible for an average 34%

Prior studies omit impacts of food & drink, materials purchased, or trader travel. In some cases, production and artist travel are also missing from the picture.

When accounting for more complete emissions sources the breakdown is more nuanced, with many emissions generated as a result of production and planning decisions, rather than through audience travel choices alone.

“It’s important to have a fuller picture to understand the carbon footprint of festivals and events, not least because significant impacts can be overlooked. Focus for event sustainability is often on waste, cups, and audience travel. Whilst important, this is a narrow view missing broader impacts. This can delay important decisions at the planning and design stage, such as moving away from animal and other high impact food and drinks.”
— AGF CEO Claire O'Neill

Authors note that such averages, whilst popular, should be treated with caution as disparity between the variety of festivals is significant. For instance, audience travel emissions ranged from 18% to 79% of a festival’s footprint, depending on scale, location, and nature of the event. As more events work to collect this type of information, these numbers will become more accurate and will help identify further improvements. 

The study also highlights that carbon footprints do not provide insight on other environmental impacts such as light or noise pollution, direct habitat disturbance, or pollution on site. These impacts should be identified and mitigated through the use of biodiversity and environmental assessments.  It also acknowledges the importance of festivals for social, cultural and mental health benefits for society. Future research will include emissions avoided by attending a festival.

For the next phase of this study AGF invites interested industry groups, festivals and sustainability organisations to collaborate with shared information, for a clearer picture for the festival and events sector as a whole.

Summary of Key findings:

  • ✓

    Audience travel on average marginally represents the largest single source of emissions, contributing to 41% of the average festival footprint.

  • ✓

    Wider travel including artists, production, and traders represents 57% of emissions. For smaller festivals (less than 25,000 daily capacity) wider this increases to 70%.

  • ✓

    Average emissions per person per day at a festival were 11 kg CO2e.

  • ✓

    Food and drink represent the second largest source with over one third (35%) of average festival carbon footprint. This is significantly reduced at events who have adopted plant-based policies.

  • ✓

    Waste disposal, water use, and sewage treatment account for only 5% of average footprint. However, these create other impacts on biodiversity, local ecosystems, and resource consumption which carbon analysis alone can overlook.

  • ✓

    Energy use represented nearly 1.5% of average festival carbon footprint, due to high adoption of biodiesel (HVO) and electrification of events analysed by AGF. This would represent 5% if all biodiesel used had been conventional fossil diesel.

  • ✓

    The analysis is based on festivals and events already taking significant sustainable actions, so may be representative of best practice events.

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