A Greener Future for Festivals? A Scoring Framework for assessing Sustainable Environmental Practices

Festival organisers and policy makers recognise the need to stage more sustainable events, alongside this, understanding the type and scope of practices used to minimise environmental impacts and engage attendees is commanding increased attention. This paper assesses festivals’ communication of sustainable environmental practices on their websites and their commitment towards reducing their negative environmental impacts. It develops and applies a scoring framework to assess the environmental practices of 110 festivals across Wales and provides valuable insights into how festivals are progressing towards staging more sustainable events. Although 65% of festivals communicated practices relating to at least one environmental category, the level of engagement was low based on the type and scope of practices. Festivals prioritised action on ‘food and drink’ and ‘waste management’, followed by ‘sustainable transport’. The paper discusses the strengths and limitations of the scoring framework, and how it can provide valuable intelligence for festival organisers and policy makers.