Music festivals try to save the planet, one recycled tent at a time
Tomorrowland, one of Europe’s biggest festivals, to scale back its carbon footprint. “It’s not only about reducing the huge carbon footprint all at once,” said Lori Maes, a coordinator at Belgium-based Camp2Camp, which provided tents and rented out secondhand sleeping bags, air mattresses and chairs to festival goers.
“It’s about making efforts that, combined together, can make a difference.” With much of the world baking in extreme heat this summer, there’s been a renewed focus on the environmental impact of the concert industry. From Britain’s Glastonbury Festival to Coachella in California, event organisers are focusing more than ever on sustainability by planting trees, banning single-use plastic bottles and even ensuring that face glitter is biodegradable.
Festivals are like “living laboratories because you can try something one year, then you can evaluate, and the following year you can try something new,” said Holger Jan Schmidt, general secretary at Yourope — The European Festival Association. “Festivals can also act as a motivator given that they appeal to a large group of young people.” Held for two weekends each summer in the Belgian town of Boom, Tomorrowland draws roughly 400,000 fans of electronic dance music from over 200 countries.
Tapio, a Brussels-based consultancy, estimates that the festival emits almost 150,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent due to the air travel, merchandise and food involved. That’s roughly on par with the annual emissions footprint of 9,300 Belgians.
This year, efforts to improve sustainability were evident across Tomorrowland’s sprawling site, which played host to 16 stages and some 750 musical acts. The festival expanded its electricity grid in order to halve its use
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