Welcome to the first Vision: 2025 newsletter, arriving at a time when our community of festivals, suppliers, festival staff and artists are facing an unprecedented challenge.

This new monthly newsletter will provide inspiration and resources for a more sustainable event industry. News and information will be gathered and shared from our community of over 100 festivals and events, industry membership organisations and 50+ suppliers, plus news from Powerful Thinking, and beyond.

"This is not the last significant challenge we will face, as the wider environmental crisis evolves. Let’s make this time count, build a better ‘new normal’ based on long term-thinking, collaboration, resilience, and respect for life and the ecosystems that support us."  Vision: 2025 Outdoor Events Industry Environmental Steering Group Statement.

Read the full Vision: 2025 Covid-19 statement HERE. 

Photo credit: Michelle Roberts for Leeds Festival

This month we launch the Vision: 2025 Industry Leaders Q&A, a regular slot which celebrates inspirational people from across the industry. We ask each guest 20 questions to reveal their inspirations, secrets of success and tips for sustainability.

For edition #1 we welcome Mary Corfield, Event Director of Greenbelt Festival and an events consultant with a stand-out passion for sustainability, who amongst other revelations tells us of her plans for The Sustainable(ish) Online Festival, this May 11-15th. Read the Q&A on the Vision: 2025 website HERE. 

Take part in designing a green future for the event industry in the Vision: 2025 Forum a free-to-access online event, May 26, 2:00-3:30pm.

We are in unprecedented and challenging times: this break from 'business as usual' could open new ways of working and be a moment to hardwire sustainability into our events, the industry and our future. Join with other event organisers to discuss your current experience, and how we take the next steps individually and collectively.

Register in advance: HERE.

Photo credit: James Allen for Julie's Bicycle

It's not too late to join our partners at Green Events Netherlands for the ADE Green Livecast, tonight, 7th May at 8pm (CEST).

Join the hour-long Livecast direct from the Felix Meritis in Amsterdam with music, event, and festival professionals from around the globe, for an online discussion to connect, share ideas and reflect on the new realities facing the electronic music scene.

Read the full programme and register HERE. 

Dutch Festival DGTL has replaced its cancelled event in April with the 'Revolution Talks' - a series of videos from the creative minds behind the sustainable systems that would have been implemented during DGLT 2020.

Topics include: setting a vision, circular foodcourts, resource management, smart energy plans, circular sanitation and volunteer management. Check out the videos on the DGLT website HERE.

The Vision: 2025 team took part in the Sustainable Event Alliance (SEA) global online event, April 15, which brought together 500 professionals to discuss the current crisis and what it means for sustainability in the events industry. A poll of participants was 50/50 on whether sustainability will take the main stage or be sidelined as a result of Covid-19.

Watch a summary of the event and find out more about the Sustainable Event Alliance HERE.

Join Julie's Bicycle for their next Creative Green webinar on May 14, 10.30-12.00 (BST) for insight into the bigger picture of climate policy, setting targets, top tips to reduce your emissions across operations and case studies from creative organisations. 

With speakers: Chiara Badiali and Graciela Melitsko-Thornton (Julie’s Bicycle), Simon Curtis (Royal Exchange Theatre, and Manchester Arts Sustainability Team) and Helen Franks (Good Energy). Register for the free webinar HERE. 

A recent report of 22 Life Cycle Analysis studies on event cups types, by the The Public Waste Agency of Flanders (OVAM), has concluded that reusable cups offer the best environmental option, and provides a score for different plastic cup types. It also launched an online tool to help Flemish event organisers to understand and compare choices of cup type.

Find the English language summary, a link to the study and further reading suggestions on the Vision: 2025 website HERE. 

Each month we'll host a round up of sustainability news from the event industry and beyond, picked by the Vision: 2025 team; here's what we watched, listened to and read:

What will COVID-19 teach us? Chair of the Vision: 2025 steering group, Chris Johnson, talks to Standout Magazine about how we can adapt to a increasingly dynamic world. Read the article HERE.

Costing the Earth: Music's Green Day on BBC Radio 4: With acts like Coldplay, The 1975, Billie Eilish and Massive Attack moving towards greener touring Tom Heap asks what the music industry can do to reduce its carbon footprint. Listen HERE.

We Make Tomorrow Livestream: Watch recordings from the livestream for We Make Tomorrow, Julie's Bicycle's major summit on creativity and leadership in a climate emergency which ran in February, HERE.

BBC News: Climate change: Could the coronavirus crisis spur a green recovery? BBC environment analyst, Roger Harrabin looks at how some governments are harnessing their economic recovery plans to boost low-carbon industries, HERE

Edie's #SustyTalks: edie’s content editor Matt Mace discusses combatting single-use plastics during the lockdown with City to Sea’s chief executive Rebecca Burgess. Watch the interview HERE.

A Greener Festival Assessor Training Online: new date released: the next course will run for two weeks from June 10th, in association with Falmouth University. Find out more and register HERE.

Positive News updates us on, 'How drive-in festivals are keeping culture alive in the Czech Republic.' Read the article HERE.