CLIMATE AND ENVIRONMENTAL WORK
Since the festivals inception in 2017, we have been working to minimize our climate and environmental impact. We started with the area where we caused the most emissions, international air travel, and have since expanded the work to include more and more parts of the business. The result is about 95% reduction in direct emissions, and we continue to work on measuring and reducing our indirect emissions.
Since 2023, we have been leading a research project funded by the EU's Creative Europe cultural fund. In collaboration with researchers from the University of Galway and three international music festivals, we are investigating emissions linked to the festivals' activities and how we can reduce them further. The results will be published in the form of a "Green Festival Guide" which, in an easy-to-understand and effective way, supports cultural organizations in transforming their operations to become more sustainable.
Today, our climate and environmental work can be summarized in the points below. They are constantly evolving and changing as we learn more.
Overall principles
1. Every operational decision is examined from an environmental and climate perspective
2. We actively seek collaboration with like-minded organizations in order to spread methods and improve efficiency for reduced collective emissions
3. The artistic content highlights topics that relate to the UN's sustainability goals such as democracy, gender equality, climate and the environment
Direct travel and transport
4. Our festival artists commit to not traveling to the festival by air or fossil car
5. Our academy students undertake not to travel to the festival by air or fossil fuel car
6. All festival cars are electrically powered
7. We offer our partners electrically powered replacement vehicles for transportation when possible
Audience travel
8. The festival organizes an electrically powered audience bus from Södertälje to Kulturhuset in Ytterjärna so that the audience can easily get to the festival fossil-free.
9.The audience's travel habits are investigated in order to help further reduce emissions from public transport
Food and drink
10. All food served at the festival is vegan or vegetarian
11. The raw materials are organic and mostly locally grown
12. Both we and our partners do our utmost not to use disposable items during the festival period
13. Our main partners use recycling and composting
Printed materials and advertising
14. As a rule, we do not print program books or flyers. The programs are communicated digitally and projected in the concert hall during the concerts.
15. We design almost all roll-ups, banners and posters to be reusable
16. We do not print promotional items such as t-shirts, mugs, pens etc
Other
17. We use electricity labeled with Good Environmental Choice
18. At our request, the hotel cleans the artists' rooms every four days instead of every day.
