Seventeenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

Music festivals are unique environments in which large amounts of waste are created over a short period of time, and where this management has been identified as a barrier to achieving sustainable objectives. The environmental repercussions of large green-field gatherings are significant and have become a rising concern. Festival managers are becoming increasingly aware of the environmental impacts that their events are having, and recognise that the high costs of waste collection and disposal can be reduced through sustainable strategies. Organisers view solid waste at the end of the event as a way to gauge how successful their practices are. However, this does not show the specific results of individual interventions that have been implemented, but only provides an overall conclusion. A number of practical interventions have been introduced by festival organisers and ‘green teams’ in an attempt to minimise the environmental impact of the events. This study explores the effectiveness of existing sustainable interventions introduced at music festivals and then explore how these can be built upon in relation to behaviour change methods in order to maximise success in relation to sustainable behaviours and to minimise the amount of waste left behind at the end of the event.