Introduction
As an event organizer, you have a significant opportunity to positively impact the environment through sustainable waste management practices at your large-scale events. Whether planning an intimate concert or a multi-day festival for thousands of attendees, it’s essential to recognize that your event can have consequences for the environment, including waste generation, energy consumption, and direct carbon emissions.
Transitioning to more sustainable waste management practices can also enhance efficiency and save your company money in the long run. When considering concert sustainability, you can improve waste practices and encourage your attendees to act more environmentally consciously. Any event with a high number of attendees generates substantial waste. Therefore, it’s important to minimize this impact by asking yourself: What waste are you generating at your event? This article outlines ways to manage and minimize waste sustainably!
Zero Waste Goals for Live Events
Ideally, your next concert or festival would strive for a zero-waste outcome. You might wonder, what is zero waste? It is a lifestyle aimed at eliminating waste production, focusing on recycling and reusing materials that would otherwise end up in landfills. The zero-waste philosophy promotes creative planning of waste generation and can be applied by individuals, families, organizations, and businesses. While the ultimate goal is to eliminate waste entirely, any reduction in waste is valuable.
To apply these principles at your upcoming event, consider the following approaches:
– Eliminate or transition away from single-use items such as cups and dinnerware.
– Invest in repairable equipment and high-quality, long-lasting items like instruments, speakers, lighting, and staging.
– Inform your attendees that your event aims for zero waste to raise awareness and encourage their participation.
While selling out a festival is a significant achievement for event planners, allowing ticket resales can help you plan for the number of attendees closer to the actual planned figure. This approach maximizes energy use and facilitates better planning for food and beverages. Additionally, offering ticket resales fosters trust and enhances relationships with your customers.
The WM Phoenix Open stands out as a leader in sustainability, being the largest-scale event that operates on a zero-waste model, a practice they have refined over the past thirteen years. Their business approach and environmental impact can serve as a model for your next event!
Circular Economy Concept
The concept of a circular economy redefines consumption. Instead of immediately replacing broken items, resources should remain in circulation for as long as possible by repairing and recycling what you already own. A circular economy empowers individuals to care for the products they possess, which maintains their value and can ultimately save your production team money.
For your next event, focus on the following aspects:
- Repair your equipment and invest in products designed to last.
- Keep microphones, instruments, and cables clean and store them properly.
- Regularly assess and calibrate your amplifiers, speakers, sound systems, and lights.
- Include equipment care and troubleshooting in employee training.
- Promote resourcefulness by encouraging the reuse and repair of equipment in creative ways, even if they are faulty.
- Don’t rely on single-use plastics.
By maximizing the use of existing equipment, you reduce waste and minimize overconsumption. Additionally, consider borrowing or renting equipment instead of purchasing new items for your event,
Minimize the Paper Used for Live Entertainment Events
Do you generally use physical tickets printed and distributed through a box office? Do you print programs or schedules on paper for every event? Consider adopting an event app for digital tickets, programs, and informational handouts. If printing is necessary, ask your printing company to use recycled paper. When promoting your event, pursue digital marketing channels instead of relying on physical flyers or billboards.
Waste Sorting: Make It Easy
As previously mentioned, while achieving zero waste may be a future goal, you can also focus on practices from the circular economy to minimize waste. Waste at large concerts is unavoidable, but you can still attempt to control it. Start by identifying the types of waste you are producing:
– Can you reduce any of it?
– Can you replace it with more sustainable alternatives that generate less waste?
– Are you able to use recyclable, compostable, or reusable materials instead?
If a majority of your waste comes from food and beverage items, consider providing reusable utensils, cups, and food containers. You can opt for washable fabric napkins, recyclable cans, or compostable food wrapping. Additionally, set up a water station that allows attendees to bring their own reusable water bottles (which should be empty when brought through security) or sell these bottles at the event as merchandise for the artist, your company, or your venue.
When attendees rush to leave after an event, they may not be mindful about how they dispose of their waste as they try to get ahead of the crowd. It’s crucial to establish a foolproof system with clearly labeled recycling, compost, and trash bins to ensure waste is sorted correctly. It doesn’t matter if your cups are recyclable if they all end up in the trash. Purchasing compostable utensils is more expensive than plastic ones. if they end up in the trash, the money is wasted. You must prioritize executing your waste management plan and communicate this information clearly.
Contact your local trash collection company to understand their policies regarding composting food waste and what can be recycled. You can also check your local community’s recycling policies, as some areas do not allow food waste in the green compost bins and require separate processing. This is particularly relevant for festivals with numerous food vendors. If your event falls into this category, reach out to local farms, community gardens, or animal farms to see if they accept food waste for their compost. Be creative and invest in your community.
Reduce Waste Where You Can
In general, if you cannot eliminate waste, make efforts to reduce it. For example, Coldplay uses reusable and rechargeable LED wristbands that they clean between uses at their concerts. Once the tour concludes, these wristbands are 100% compostable. They encourage attendees to return them and have achieved an average return rate of 86% at each event. Coldplay has also sponsored initiatives to clean up excess waste through organizations like The Ocean Cleanup, which works to reduce the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Additionally, they use biodegradable confetti at their events. Being environmentally friendly does not mean sacrificing fun or memorable experiences. Other artists, including Dave Matthews Band, Paramore, Massive Attack, Billie Eilish, and Pink, have implemented similar sustainability initiatives. This should become the industry standard, especially among artists with large, loyal fan bases like Taylor Swift, Sabrina Carpenter, and Kendrick Lamar.
Moreover, inform audiences about the importance of avoiding single-use plastics at your event. While you shouldn’t blame or guilt customers, it’s essential to educate and encourage them to make environmentally friendly choices. Consumers clearly value convenience, so make sure your sustainability initiatives enhance their experience rather than hinder it. Inspire them to rethink their daily habits.
Conclusion
From the smallest venues to massive annual festivals, sustainability initiatives can have a significant impact. Any changes or efforts toward sustainability will benefit the local environment, and audiences will appreciate your commitment. If every event became just one percent more sustainable each year, the cumulative effects could be substantial by 2040.
Education is critical to this process, but we also need to hold the industry accountable. Achieving real change requires engagement from every member of the music industry!
Frequently Asked Questions and Answers
Do people care about sustainability?
According to a recent study by NielsenIQ, 78% of consumers reported that they value a sustainable lifestyle. Chances are, a vast majority of your potential audience feels the same way! With the ongoing climate crisis, it is increasingly important to make sustainable choices. Businesses across all industries must significantly integrate sustainability into their operations. It is becoming standard for companies to adopt some form of sustainability initiative.
How can I be more sustainable personally?
Calculate your own personal carbon footprint here. Analyze the main contributors to your waste and apply these concepts to your life and events. Look for information online to help you.
