ADE Green: Why cities and festivals get around the table on circularity

Wrapping your head around circularity and climate neutrality

To prevent us from moving around in circles, let’s first define circularity. First off, our efforts to become climate neutral and the transition to a circular economy are two sides of the same coin. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, it’s based on three principles: to eliminate waste and pollution, to circulate materials, and to regenerate nature.

This simultaneously reduces carbon emissions, one of the main steps to becoming climate-neutral. And did you know that, in Europe, this is already part of official policies? Most member states signed the European Green Deal in 2020, committing to become fully climate-neutral and circular by 2050. But what does this look like in practice, for all of society’s nuts and bolts? Spoiler alert: No one really knows... at least not yet. Our industry is so used to linear ways of doing things that it would almost have to reinvent itself.

Making more festivals more sustainable

Naturally, Europe’s commitment to becoming circular and climate-neutral applies to festivals too. Numerous festivals take place in Europe alone, attracting millions of visitors. If the organizations behind these festivals were to make certain choices in travel and transport, energy, material, food and drinks and water, they could significantly reduce their environmental impact. Complex enough as these choices are, they matter even more because of their reach. While festivals can influence otherwise hard-to-reach guests and inspire them to behave more sustainably at home, they can also encourage the festivals’ entire supply chain to, for example, purchase consciously, use materials responsibly and prevent waste.

Testing grounds for a circular and climate-neutral future

But festivals have an even more impactful role to play. They can help in testing circular climate-neutral models for organizing cities and society, as festivals are basically temporary mini-societies that have to cover the same basic needs for their people. Festivals have fixed demographics and timespans, so pilots for innovations are relatively easy to set up, monitor and evaluate. Every edition is an opportunity to improve on a circular innovation, to the point that it’s ready to scale it to the even bigger stage of society at large, starting with cities.

A good deal to scale

Why start with cities, you may ask? Good question. For starters, cities are one step up in scale from festivals. With festivals already having to deal with local municipalities to arrange permits, transportation services and power supply, often there is already some kind of relationship in place. Plus, there’s a lot of overlap between the sustainability challenges of a festival and those of a city. For example, the municipality of Amsterdam recently announced a long-term strategy to reduce the waste of food, plastics and other resources. Meanwhile, these are also pillars for the unique Green Deal Circular Festivals, which was launched on ADE Green in 2019 with participating festivals, supported by the government of the Netherlands. An official pledge was made here to develop and implement circular and climate-neutral solutions, share their knowledge and provide inspiration to visitors, other sectors and cities.

Back-scratchers forming a circle

It's no coincidence that the Green Deal Circular Festivals and the Municipality of Amsterdam initiated the upcoming ADE Green panel on how festivals and cities can help each other in the circular and climate-neutral transition together. It seeks to expand partnerships between cities and festivals. The benefits are mutual. For festivals, a structural dialogue with local government helps to secure their license to operate, remove regulatory obstacles towards circularity and climate neutrality, provide new business opportunities as organizers of events and position them as inspiring innovators.

Conversely, with the help of festivals, cities can scale promising innovations, engage citizens in the circular and climate-neutral transition, improve their own events and access the sector’s creativity for complex urban transitions. For now, these benefits remain rather small-scale, and are therefore up for discussion during ADE Green.

Truly transformational festivals

In the end, festivals have more to offer to their local governments than they may realize. Rather than simply having a transactional relationship, where festival organizations are only in contact with the city’s departments for permits and other municipal services, efforts should be aligned with their local sustainability department: not only to give something back to nature, but also to fulfill a bigger role in future policymaking. Through this, the roles could shift towards strategic partners in the shared ambition of a fully circular and climate-neutral society. Wouldn’t that be truly transformational?

Want to join the inner circle of cities and festivals?

Join the panel on how cities and festivals can help each other during ADE Green featuring contributions from Rosan Kocken (Province of Noord-Holland), Frédéric Hocquard (Deputy mayor of Paris), Marie Sabot (director of We Love Green), Christina Bilde (director of Roskilde Festival) and Jasper Goossen (director of DGTL festival). After this panel, in the final program concluding the ADE Green conference, Vivianne Heijnen (Minister for the Environment of The Netherlands) and festival organizers who are already part of the international Green Deal Circular Festivals will officially welcome a new group of over 20 European frontrunner festivals to join the Green Deal.