In this month's Vision: 2025 newsletter: 

• Industry Green Leader Q&A with Artur Mendes, Co-Director, Boom Festival & Being Gathering, Portugal 
• Guest Blog: Rebecca Whitman, Sustainability Manager, on creating Green Space Dark Skies first Sustainability impact report. 
• Sustainable Event Summit: Get your tickets + programme updates
• Guest Blog:  Johnny Lance, Co-Director of The Showman's Show, on their sustainability journey and ongoing partnership with the Sustainable Event Summit
• AIF x ecolibrium: Climate Responsible Travel Webinar: Watch the recording
• Climate Change Specialist Richard Phillips, from Julie's Bicycle, shares insights on how Glastonbury and the wider outdoor events sector are reducing their environmental impact.
• Sustainable Suppliers: The Stage Bus - Solar-powered stages 
• Resource spotlight: Green Space Dark Skies impact report 
• Case Study: Future Festival Tools spotlight Boom Festival's water policy
• Fusion Festivals Case Study: Roskilde Festival's Circular Lab
• Selected news, jobs, events, and comment from across the live events industry and beyond.

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

For this month's Green Leader Q&A, we spoke with Artur Medes, one of the co-directors of Boom Festival and the Being Gathering, two transformational and change-making festivals.

Artur's role is to positively affect people through initiatives that transform them and regenerate the land, with the aim of inspiring ‘Boomers’ to transform their communities. His ongoing studies in permaculture, eco-village design, bio-agriculture, and involvement with the THNK School of Creative Leadership, all influence his approach. Read Artur's answers here. 

Boom Festival recently featured in the Future Festival Tools Green Festival Stories for their onsite water treatment processes, see below or read the case study.

In May, Esther Koshari, Paradise City Festival took the Q&A Read her answers HERE.

In this guest blog, Rebecca Whitman shares her experience of working as Sustainability Manager for the award-winning Green Space Dark Skies project, a touring series of 20 mass participation events in outdoor landscapes produced by Walk the Plank.

The project took place across all four regions of the UK between April to September 2022 as part of the UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK festival and won the National Outdoor Event Association's Sustainability Award 2022. Rebecca shares her learnings of setting the strategy and direction right through to measuring, monitoring, and reporting on both social and environmental impacts across the whole project, and of providing support and expertise to the team through planning and delivery. Read the blog here. 

Read The Green Space Dark Skies Sustainability Impact Report.

Photo credit: Green Space Dark Skies, Scafell Pike, by Jason Lock

Vision: 2025 presents an action-focused conference format for the outdoor events industry with the 8th edition Sustainable Events Summit 2023 at The Showman’s Show, Newbury Showground, Wednesday 18th October. Presenting the latest research tools and knowledge to bring event organisers, suppliers, local authorities and experts together, the summit will drive collaborative resource development, industry standards, best practice and innovation that will inspire and shape the industry response to the climate emergency at UK events.

The Sustainable Event Summit hosts two sessions:

• 10:45-12:45 – Vision: 2025 member CoLab session + free networking lunch: For events who have taken the Vision: 2025 pledge. Enter the Vision members promo code to access or email bethan@vision2025.org.uk if you haven’t yet received yours.
   
• 13:00-17:30 – Sustainable Event Summit Main Programme: Open-to-all: The afternoon session hosts the main programme and we welcome all show guests and event profs.

See the programme / Get your tickets.

Vision: 2025’s Sustainable Event Summit will return to The Showman’s Show in October 2023 for its eighth edition. The team at the Showman’s Show have hosted the Vision: 2025 conference from the outset, helping to promote sustainable solutions throughout the industry.

In this interview we speak to Johnny Lance, co-director of the Show about their journey to improve the event’s carbon footprint year on year, and what inspires him to lead the charge. Johnny highlights some of the sustainable suppliers and innovations he’s excited about hosting at the Show and shares their progress in the key areas of power, transport, waste, and food. Read the interview with Johnny Lance. 

Glastonbury’s sustainability efforts hit the headlines several times this year with everything from installing a wind turbine, to sustainable transport options and banning the sale of disposable vapes.

Fresh from the fields, music sustainability specialist Richard Phillips from Julie's Bicycle shares insights from how Glastonbury and the wider outdoor events sector are reducing their environmental impact. Featuring the newly launched Future Festival Tools and our very own Towards Zero Waste Festivals Report. Read the update here. 

In partnership with the Association of Independent Festivals (AIF), ecolibrium presented a lunch and learn webinar: Climate Responsible Travel for Live Events earlier this month. Playback the video to:

➡ Learn about ecolibrium’s simple four-step process for tackling your event’s travel impacts – from gathering data and measuring emissions to making a carbon reduction plan, funding climate action, and engaging audiences

➡ Gain insights from ecolibrium’s new Green Travel and Transport Guide for Events and leave with a useful checklist for reducing travel-related carbon emissions

➡ Hear from Chris Johnson (Shambala Festival, Vision: 2025, ecolibrium) and Ben Robinson (From The Fields; Bluedot & Kendal Calling) about what’s worked for them and what hasn’t. Watch the webinar here.

Green Space Dark Skies (GSDS) was an ambitious cross-sector collaborative project commissioned by UNBOXED: Creativity in the UK in 2022. The project put environmental sustainability at its heart, achieving some major sustainability successes and impressive carbon savings. GSDS has released the report to share this best practice with organisations delivering outdoor events. Read the report here.

Each month we feature a case study from the FUSION – Festivals as Social Innovation Incubators project. This month we turn the spotlight on Roskilde Festival, Denmark (capacity 130,000). 

Together with the Tuborg Foundation, Roskilde Festival has created The Circular Lab providing 200 young entrepreneurs with the opportunity to lead the way and develop ambitious circular solutions for the future. The aim is to increase the influence of young people on a more sustainable future and the climate behaviour of citizens in general. Read the full Roskilde case study on the Fusion Festivals website. 

Boom Festival, Portugal (capacity 40,000) has the motto “every drop counts,” a sentiment appropriate for an event located in a country feeling the effects of climate change, with widespread drought becoming common and already affecting event licences.

Boom’s approach has been to maximise the available water, reduce water consumption and treat grey water for reuse on the land while building systems that prevent contamination of the nearby lake and waterways. Read how the Boom Festival team achieve this on the Future Festivals website.

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

Glastonbury Festival powered on 100% renewable energy, in Access All Areas HERE. 

New waste data recording tools released for Vision: 2025's citizen-science call for Festival Waste Data. Event organisers can get involved & receive the tools HERE

Greenpeace launch: Future Utopia ft. Avelino and Tomorrow's Warriors - Don't Stop video HERE

New energy reduction programme from Julie's Bicycle is live! Designed to help buildings-based organisations reduce energy emissions with free resources HERE

Former Undertones frontman, Feargal Sharkey campaigns for cleaner rivers, in the Guardian HERE.

Get your tickets for the Blue Earth Summit, 3-day event harnessing the power of being outdoors to bring people together to build a more positive future for our planet.11-13th Oct, Bristol, HERE

Partying, but not for profit – 8 ethical music festivals in the UK and Europe, in The Guardian HERE

Our newsletter reaches over 3,700 UK event professionals interested in sustainability. Send jobs, events, resources and articles to feature here to: info@vision2025.org.uk