This month we celebrate the emergence of Spring and hope for a summer events season, with a particularly exciting newsletter: 

• New media partnership with Access All Areas launched
• Meet Victoria Chapman (Live Nation) in the Green Leaders Q&A
• New Release - #WeMakeTheFuture webinar recordings
• Guest Blog - Pauline Bourdon shares Team Love's impact report for 2020 event Breaking Bread.  
• Without Walls launch a new Green Production Lab
• Pulp Friction: Delve into the world of power from waste, in Tim Benson's latest Powerful Thinking blog

This month we are delighted to have Victoria Chapman, Head of Sustainability (UK & Ireland) at Live Nation, take the Green Leaders Q&A slot. Victoria works with Festival Republic and others in the Live Nation family to implement Green Nation, Live Nation’s sustainability charter.   She is a Creative Climate Leader alumni with Julie’s Bicycle and has been recognised as a Creative Green Champion. Read her answers HERE

In February Sarah Bird, Co-director of Wild Rumpus, took the Q&A read her answers HERE.

Pauline Bourdon, Sustainability and Social Cohesion Coordinator at Team Love, shares her experience of working on Breaking Bread, a pop-up, socially distanced, drinking & dining experience set up on The Downs in Bristol by the team behind Love Saves the Day Festival during the summer of 2020.

Pauline researched and produced a report, released this month, detailing the Social, Economic and Environmental Impacts of the event. Her blog explains her process and aims in producing the report, its key findings and Breaking Bread’s achievements and goals moving forward. Read the blog HERE. 

Over the next three months we'll be sharing the recordings of Vision: 2025's Autumn #WeMakeTheFuture webinar series, hosted by Julie's Bicycle.

Edition #1 is on Net Zero Emissions and the Outdoor Events Industry, which takes a closer look at why 'net zero' matters and how we translate the idea meaningfully for the outdoor events sector. Chiara Badiali (Julie’s Bicycle) speaks to Christopher Jones (Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research) about the Tyndall Centre’s work and their collaboration with Massive Attack, and Chris Johnson looks at Shambala Festival’s strategy over the last decade. Watch the recording HERE .

Vision: 2025 has teamed up with event trade magazine Access All Areas to raise event sustainability up the agenda for the live music and outdoor event sector.

Vision:2025 will contribute content to a new monthly Sustainability Newsletter, to inspire and inform best environmental practices for events. The newsletter will be distributed to the Access all Areas readership and will be bolstered by articles in the magazine and seminars at the Event Production Show.

Graham Brown, Vision: 2025 board member states: “We are hearing about new technologies and working practices every week and collating them on our free to access web knowledge hub and our own newsletter. This new publication gives a wider reach and a new audience, who we hope will join the journey towards cutting carbon emissions from live events.”

The Green Production Lab is a new initiative which will  provide a forum for production managers working in outdoor arts to connect with peers, share knowledge and best practice, and feel inspired and empowered to take positive and proactive steps to address the climate emergency through their work.

Without Walls have partnered with outdoor arts specialists, Walk the Plank, to host a series of accessible online sessions to take place over four weeks in April/May 2021, addressing key topics: Embedding sustainable thinking in the production process, Energy, Circularity, and Touring.

Find out more on the Without Walls website HERE.

Photo Credit: As The World Tipped by Wired Aerial Theatre at WE Wonder Noir (Without Walls Partner) (C) James Mulkeen

John Marshall-Potter, Co-founder of FolkEast, a 10k capacity festival which takes place in August in Glemham Hall, Suffolk, talks about their journey to achieve the lowest carbon footprint as possible and how being a truly local festival helps in cutting emissions. Read the blog HERE.

Photo Credit: FolkEast by John Heald

Vision: 2025 engaged 85 members of the recently-formed South Coast Events Forum (SCEF) in a webinar to encourage a greener route back to business for live events, as they prepare to restart when pandemic lockdown restrictions are lifted. 

The new not-for-profit forum SCEF will be led by nine hugely-experienced professionals from across the events industry including Chair, Craig Mathie, Managing Director of Bournemouth 7s Festival and Vision: 2025 Steering Group member. Craig comments; 

“As the events industry re-emerges, it is more important than ever that we place the planet at the centre of what we do. Where our industry leads, the public will follow and it is therefore imperative we act in a more responsible and sustainable manner when planning and delivering our events."

Membership of the South Coast Events Forum is free for both organisers and suppliers. Find out more HERE.

Season for Change invites all artists and cultural and creative organisations to host events, artworks and actions across the UK that inspire urgent and inclusive action on climate change.

In 2021, the project is uniting the UK’s creative and cultural community in a global call to action about our earth. Everyone is welcome. Individuals as well as organisations. Large and small. Local and national. Live and digital. Be part of one of the most exciting national collaborations to celebrate our planet. List your events and activities HERE.

Join Livvy Drake (Sustainable Sidekicks) to go through a process to create an engaging sustainability policy with your team or clients.

The workshop aims to provide the right tools to capture your client’s or your team's vision, values, priorities and concerns - and get everyone involved and focused. Find out more HERE. 

Here's what the Vision: 2025 team have been watching, listening to, and reading this month:

New resource by Julie's Bicycle: Briefing report exploring putting a price on or ‘pricing in’ carbon, net zero emissions commitments and creating action plans HERE.

Standout Magazine Green Column: "An ambitious roadmap is needed to acheive net zero in the live evets industry." Read the article HERE.

Catch up on hightlights from the The Green Events and Innovations Conference in IQ Magazine HERE.

Check out events near you that are part of the #SeasonForChange Open Programme, celebrating the environment or inspiring urgent action on climate change HERE.

photo: by Marcus Spiske @ Pexels

Powerful Thinking's Chair, Tim Benson, looks at the huge potential of recycling waste products into electricity and how this process could be a solution to help festivals and events to meet their targets around reducing CO2 emissions from power provision.

From leftover oranges in Seville, generating electricity for the city's water recycling plant - to cooking oil from the BBC canteen being recycled into biodiesel to power outdoor broadcasts – Tim recounts the success stories and considerations in turning waste to power - and looks at how Glastonbury Festival have led the way by building a 125kW anaerobic digestion plant on their site (pictured). Read the full blog HERE.