In this month's Vision: 2025 newsletter: 

• Industry Green Leader Q&A with Zofia Plonczak, Sustainability Lead at Junction 2 Festival
• Vision: 2025 expands steering group ahead of 2030 strategy
• Sustainable Materials & Waste Management Toolkit is live: with links to watch the webinar replay 
• Guest Blog: Green Events on Five Solutions to Campsite Waste
• Resource Spotlight: Sustainable Event Summit #SES23 video replay: 'The Best of the Summer: Green Festival Success Stories' panel
• Earth Percent Publish 2022-23 Impact Report
• New Toolkit from Attitude is Everything: 'No climate action without us' 
• Green Supplier Spotlight: Big Green Coach x Boardmasters Festivals - low carbon travel network
• ecolibrium's event industry community invest over £650,000 in climate
• Future Festival Tools Case Study: Tollwood Festival, Germany
• Fusion Festivals Case Study: Exit Festival, Serbia. 
• Selected news, jobs, events, and comments from across the live events industry and beyond.

Get in touch with your questions and suggestions at info@vision2025.org.uk

Zofia has been working in event operations for over 10 years across a number of small, medium and large-scale festivals and venues. Her journey with event sustainability started during first COVID-19 lockdown when she decided to upskill herself in sustainability management. She has been working closely one of her long-term clients, Junction 2 Festival on a 3-year journey toward Net Zero. Read Zofia's answers here. 

In January, we spoke to Hannah Cox @ Betternotstop: Read Hannah's Q&A here.

Vision: 2025 Industry steering group has expanded to begin the process of developing a new environmental strategy for the sector for 2030.

Vision: 2025 welcomed new steering group members to the UK Outdoor Events Environmental Steering Group this week, expanding the group to include more perspectives and experience -  from production companies, industry experts, and Attitude is Everything, the leading organisation for accessibility in the Live sector.

New organisations and representatives to the group include; The East Anglian Festival Network, Attitude is Everything, We are The Fair Group, Sophilia, Betternotstop impact agency, and LS Events. Read more about the new member representatives HERE.

Photo credit: New Steering Group Member Pauline Bourdon from Soliphilia

Vision: 2025's Sustainable Materials & Waste Management Toolkit created in collaboration with Julie's Bicycle was launched earlier this month at the AIF congress and an online webinar. The Toolkit is the latest resource created for the Towards Zero Waste Festival Project, run by Vision: 2025 and Julie's Bicycle, and funded by the Dixon Foundation. Watch the Webinar catch up here. 

Our friends at Green Events share their insights into tackling campsite waste in this blog, written following insights from ADE Green's panel: ‘Campsite waste; a single-use plastic problem in need for a radical mind shift,’ where panel host Frank Kimenai discussed the topic with Megan Best (Native Events), Teresa Moore (Green Festival Awards) and Eric van Eerdenburg (Lowlands Festival). Read the five solutions to campsite waste blog here

EarthPercent was created in 2021 to work with artists and the music industry to unleash the power of music in service of the planet. They collaborate with musicians and music businesses to support the most impactful environmental and climate justice organisations, to help supercharge the innovation needed to propel the music sector to zero emissions; and to support artists in advocacy and activism.

This report celebrates Earth Percents supporters and shows the impacts of their grant partner projects, of which Vision: 2025 is one. Read the report HERE

Live music accessibility charity Attitude is Everything has partnered with sustainability groups Julie’s Bicycle and A Greener Future on a research programme that examines how access to live music events for disabled people can become environmentally sustainable. Download the toolkit HERE. 

The event charity ecolibrium celebrated a milestone in its community’s collective impact: reaching over £650,000 invested in climate projects to address the impact of travel at events. 

Founded by festival organisers to tackle travel impacts at live events, typically the largest source of carbon emissions at greenfield music festivals, ecolibrium’s mission is to move low carbon travel into the heart of live events culture and unite their community of events, music companies, crew and artists in environmental restoration. Watch ecolibrium's video and read more about the impact of the donations for climate project partners HERE.

Vision: 2025's Sustainable Events Summit 2023 sessions are now available to watch on catch up. The Best of the Summer panel introduced guests from guests from UK outdoor festivals who have led the way through the 2023 season with campaigns to reduce the environmental impacts of events.

Hosted by John Rostron (CEO, Association Independent Festivals) the panel introduced guests: Pauline Bourdon (Love Saves the Day / Forwards Festival), Tess Wilson (Boomtown Fair), Vikki Chapman (Live Nation), Hannah Cox (Betternotstop / Kendal Calling) and Josephine Bodimeade (Shamabala Festival). Watch the video HERE. 

Each month we feature a case study from the FUSION – Festivals as Social Innovation Incubators project:

This month we turn the spotlight on Exit Festival (Serbia,180,000 capacity over 4 days). The festival was founded in 2000 in University Park as a student movement fighting for democracy and freedom in Serbia and the Balkans. Each year, about 50 organisations and institutions from Novi Sad, Serbia, the entire region, and Europe get a chance to present themselves at the State of EXIT Zone, where young people from all over the world get to know each other and exchange ideas about regional support and cooperation. Find out more on the Fusion website. 

Tollwood Festival (Munich, Germany, capacity 1.5 million visitors in 60 festival days), has an ambitious environmental sustainability strategy spanning many areas: this case study focuses on their food and drink offering and how they have created an organic supply chain by working closely with local restaurants and suppliers. Read the case study on the Future Festival Tools website. 

Our selected news picks from across the Live Events Industry and beyond, including jobs, events, blogs, reports, and what the Vision: 2025 team has been watching, listening to, and reading this month:

• Live Nation / Coldplay launch research into footprint of live ecosystem HERE 
• Green Events Code Pilot launched with 10 local authorities, shared in The Power of Events HERE
• TicketSellers and ecolibrium collaborate on UK festival industry’s largest ever travel data survey HERE
• A Greener Future (AGF) reveal the world’s greenest festivals, in Standout Magazine HERE
• Skiddle highlight the festivals leading the sustainability charge in 2024 HERE.

• Our newsletter reaches over 4,200 UK event professionals interested in sustainability. Send jobs, events, resources and articles to feature here to: info@vision2025.org.uk.