we’re so fortunate at Kendal calling to have our festival take place in one of the most beautiful parts of the country, but we need your help to keep it that way.
that’s why WE’RE ASKING ALL OF OUR FESTIVAL GOERS TO SIGN THE FOLLOWING PLEDGE TO HELP US MAKE KENDAL CALLING ONE OF THE GREENEST FESTIVALS IN THE COUNTRY.
· LEAVE NOTHING BUT MEMORIES: Leave your camp tidy and take your tent home!
· PROTECT THE WILDLIFE: Throw your rubbish in the bin
· CONSIDER YOUR TRAVEL: Use public transport where possible!
· ONLY BRING WHAT YOU NEED: Use resources consciously
· MAKE ECO CONSCIOUS CHOICES: Keep your green impact in mind when at the festival
Oh no! It’s the day after the festival and 284* festival fans have sadly left their tents behind! Grrr, now the tents have come loose and are flying across Cumbria and the North West! Help Kes the Kestrel take to the skies and carry the tents to landfill where they will take up to 10,000 years to decompose. Well, what else did you think happens to abandoned tents?
To drive home our message, we’re giving the first person to get to 50,000 on score a £200 bar tab to spend at the festival! Just screenshot your score and tweet it to us @kendalcalling!
HERE’S WHAT WE ARE DOING…
campsites
- As part of our effort to ensure we have clean campsites, we are encouraging festivalgoers to tidy their camps before heading into the arena. A little spring cleaning each morning goes a long way!
- We have increased waste and recycling points by 200% to make it even easier to recycle and reduce the amount of waste we will have to take to landfill this year.
- We will have bin bags available at all waste points and from our Campsite Crew to ensure you are able to round up and properly dispose of all your litter.
- Our new Campsite Crew will help you keep our Campsites as clean as possible and reduce the waste we all send to landfill.
water
- The sale of single use plastic is banned on site so all water served will be in cups or recyclable cans.
- We have more free drinking water points which are even easier to find, with clear signage.
energy & equipment
- This year at Kendal we have an overall goal of reducing fuel usage from 2022 by 15-20%. To achieve our goal we have employed a Power Manager to actively work with stakeholders in advance and onsite to ensure they are being as efficient as possible with energy use, including encouraging unnecessary items to be turned off when not needed, and monitoring and compiling data on power usage to help identify future potential savings.
- We are increasing use of solar, battery and load on demand solutions, especially during longer build and break periods, and are using efficient LED lighting solutions wherever possible across the site.
- In 2015 we co-founded the Ecolibrium Initiative, as part of our commitment and along with your support we will continue to donate to the development of renewable energy projects across the globe through our carbon offset payments.
- The decor team will be focused on reusing and recycling prior festival materials rather than using brand new products. When new materials are required, the emphasis is on renting goods as close to the festival site as possible, and on using sustainable materials, and incorporating local artisans wherever possible.
- As in 2022, all 12km of festoon lighting used around the festival has been changed to LEDs, reducing our energy consumption by up to 90%.
food & drink
- Single use plastic is banned on site so all drinks will be served in recycled or compostable cups saving up to a tonne of carbon emissions every 10,000 cups saved.
- All our traders and caterers are provided with recycling and food waste bins to dispose of waste as efficiently as possible. The more we can recycle, the less goes to landfill!
- All of our food traders have committed to serving at least one vegetarian/vegan meal. They have also been encouraged to use local produce where possible! Vegetarian meals contribute 2.5x less carbon emissions than those with meat.
- Some traders are offering a discount if you have a reusable cup or your own vessel for food. So you can save carbon and your money at the same time!
- All trader crockery and serve-ware is compostable i.e. wooden cutlery and stirrers.
- Did you know 10% of global greenhouse gasses comes from food that is produced, but not eaten? To further reduce our food waste, we are working with organisations like Open Kitchen MCR who can put it to good use and avoid it going to landfill.
TACKLING SINGLE USE PLASTIC ON OUR BARS!
This year the reusable ONE planet ONE cup scheme will return, together with a newly added token system for the times when you don’t want to carry around an empty cup.
By participating in the reusable cup scheme, you are helping to reduce waste and emissions at Kendal Calling! Event Cup Solutions is a Climate-Certified company who washes the cups locally, using water efficient machines, at facilities powered by renewable energy, and the remaining carbon impact is off-set by green initiatives. The tokens and cups are used at other events and any damaged cups are ground and remade into new cups.
HOW IT WORKS…
1. You pay a ONE-OFF charge of £2 on top of the price of your first drink, this covers the rental of the cup for the whole festival. You shouldn’t need to pay this more than once.
2. Keep a hold of your cup and exchange it for a new one the next time it’s your round! If you don’t want to carry your cup round, you can exchange it at the bars for a token instead, this can then be redeemed for a cup later on, preventing you from paying another £2.
At the end of the festival, hand the cup back to a dedicated collection point so that we can reuse the cup at the next event, keeping the circular economy moving.
And better still, for every 1,000 cups returned, Event Cup Solutions will plant a tree in the UK!
we’re all in this together. we’ve asked everyone from our production team to the headline artists to sign an eco pledge to ensure we can make this our greenest festival yet!
festival and production
we have asked all our management and production team to sign the following pledge:
- Leave nothing but memories → We are custodians of the Deer Park for one weekend in July. Nature is there all year. We must do our part to ensure we protect it.
- Litter is litter → We have increased the number of waste points in the arena and on campsites so it’s super easy to keep the Deer Park clean! We will work alongside you to use these facilities to keep your campsite area tidy and minimise litter in the arena.
- Together is better → Champion even more grassroot bands and increase diversity across the festival, in every aspect. Kendal Calling thrives on talent, your talent.
- Putting you at the centre → Empower you to make the festival your own. We have developed the Love the Park, Protect the Festival campaign to focus our efforts on environmental initiatives which promote sustainability and give you the very best festival experience.
- Teamwork is the only way → Actively support and enable our site team, including traders, suppliers, and crew, to make environmentally friendly decisions which positively impact the festival.
- Lead by example → Incorporate a green ethos throughout all operations, and commit to ensuring the festival is as environmentally conscious as it can possibly be.
- A transparent approach → Report on Kendal Calling’s overall environmental impact, highlighting our collective successes and key areas for improvements. We will make these public so as an industry, we can share best practice and grow together.
artists
we have asked all our artists to sign the following pledge:
- Quality not excess → Quality over quantity. Focus on the essentials of your rider and consider the impact over-ordering.
- Shop local → Choose to replace items on your rider with quality, locally sourced products. You minimise travel miles, support local businesses, and get to explore Cumbria’s finest food and drinks.
- Recycled materials → Use natural materials where possible. Kendal Calling has zero plastic bottles on site, so instead, use aluminium cans or cardboard cartons for water, or reuse your own bottles.
- Getting out and about → Show your commitment to reducing your environmental impact by travelling to and from the festival more sustainably.
traders
we have asked all of our traders to sign the following pledge:
- Reduce, reuse, recycle → Make good use of the rubbish and recycling bins onsite to reduce the amount we have to send to landfill. Make efforts to minimise your packaging, and always recycle when possible.
- Sustainability not waste → Actively work to reduce your food waste. Use the dedicated waste bins wherever possible, and work with food recovery initiatives to make sure any unused food goes to a good place.
- Responsible sourcing → Choose sustainably-sourced food options for your customers to enjoy! Being conscious of your raw ingredients will help the whole festival to live a more sustainable life.
- Diversity your menu → Ensure you provide at least one vegetarian and vegan meal for your customers using sustainably sourced ingredients. Kendal Callers are adventurous eaters and will relish the options!
- Bottoms up! → Make sure your drinks are either aluminium cans or cardboard cartons to eliminate single-use plastic. Or serve them up on a reusable cup and you’re good to go!
- Powering off supply → At the end of a long day, turn off your equipment and switch off the lights – we all need a rest after all.
- Packaging → Be aware of your packaging – use materials which are kind to the environment, and to your customers. Kendal Calling is working hard to become a plastic free festival!
- Choose the right size → Kendal Calling encourages traders to have a range of affordable, appropriately portioned food options.
partners
we have asked all of our partners to sign the following pledge:
- Resources are everything → Resources are finite – especially at a festival. To minimise water and energy consumption on site, implement measures to help combat unnecessary wastage.
- Powering off supply → At the end of a long day, turn off your equipment and switch off the lights – we all need a rest after all.
- Packaging → Be aware of your packaging – use materials which are kind to the environment, and to your customers. Kendal Calling is working hard to become a plastic free festival!
- Attractions and assets → Actively search out recycled, reclaimed and locally sourced material for assets, and reuse and rent them wherever possible.
- Reduce, reuse, recycle → Make good use of the rubbish and recycling bins onsite to reduce the amount we have to send to landfill. Make efforts to minimise your packaging, and always recycle when possible.
- Sustainability not waste → Actively work to reduce your food waste and choose sustainably-sourced food options for your customers to enjoy! Being conscious of your raw ingredients will help the whole festival to live a more sustainable life.
- Diversity your menu → Ensure you provide at least one vegetarian and vegan meal for your customers using sustainably sourced ingredients. Kendal Callers are adventurous eaters and will relish the options!
travel and transport
Given 80% of a festival’s emissions are caused by travel, we are encouraging festival go-ers, artists, the site team, traders, and anyone involved in the show to travel consciously and minimise their carbon emissions. On-site travel activities are kept to a minimum and electric vehicles are used where possible.
Here is a few ways in which we are helping reduce our impact, and a few suggestions on ways you can minimise your carbon footprint en route to the fields this Summer:
- Public transport is the most carbon-efficient way to travel to Kendal Calling and we encourage festival go-ers to use coaches and trains, cycle, lift-share, or even walk to the festival! More information can be found here for public transport options . Taking a train instead of a car for medium-length distances would cut your emissions by ~80%.
- In 2015 we co-founded the carbon emissions initiative Energy Revolution (now called Ecolibrium) which is dedicated to reducing the travel carbon footprint in the live events industry. Your generous contributions when you buy your tickets have meant each year we donate large sums to the initiative and it’s great to see the positive impact it’s having!
- If you decide to travel by train to Penrith North Lakes station, make sure you use our shuttle bus service to get you from the station to the festival site! Advance tickets for this can be purchased here.
- We have lots of coach pick up points to encourage group travel to and from the festival – more information here!
- Our coach partners National Express ensure they offset their excess carbon and have selected a number of projects that focus on renewable energy.
- With the average 100 mile car journey leading to over 20 kg of CO2 being produced, we suggest car sharing where possible. goCarShare is a great option for you to coordinate group lifts, as well as reducing yours and the festival’s carbon footprint considerably! (Source: DEFRA Report).
- We will publish data on exactly how everyone, including our artists and traders, travel to and from the festival and aim to reduce the collective carbon footprint year-on-year.
- Our site transport is already predominantly electric vehicles and we have minimised diesel vehicle use on site.
looking ahead!
We are incredibly committed to making Kendal Calling one of the most sustainable festivals in the country, especially given the beautiful environment we are trusted with each year. While all of the above is a fantastic start and we hope it will have a great impact on our carbon footprint, and on the site at the end of the weekend, here is a list of other opportunities we’d like to explore in future years.
waste
- We will continue increasing our recycling rates of paper and cans across the festival site by improving our signage and waste provision to make it as easy as possible for festival go-ers to recycle .
- In the future, any waste that can’t be recycled will be converted for use in fuel pellets so that it can have a use beyond landfill.
campsites
- We hope to introduce Zero Waste Campsites which will be entirely waste free!
water
- A future aim for Kendal Calling would be to use waste water run off directly on site to supply water to an orchard or farmland to reduce travel miles of the waste water.
- Building the capability on site to harvest and treat rainwater which could then be used for shower water during Kendal Calling.
- Developing the technology and processes to accurately monitor the distribution and use of any water used by the catering team to identify where water savings can be made.
energy
- We are working on a plan to reduce our reliance on generators and instead focusing on battery storage technology.
- We will work closely with our traders, suppliers and production team to understand how we can use renewable energy (solar and wind) to help reduce reliance on generators / diesel.
- Exploring the idea of solar powered charging points for festival go-ers throughout the site.
food and drink
- We are considering how we might put the infrastructure in place to compost any remaining food waste and use it as compost for the Deer Park, or a nearby orchard that’s planted, rather than sending it to a waste facility.
- Another ambition is to use the heat produced from the decomposing plant material and in future years, heat the festival shower water.
introducing: betternotstop
We’ve really had to do our research for this campaign but to really maximise our knowledge, we have enlisted the help of our friends at betternotstop. An experienced sustainability agency, to ensure we are doing everything we can to minimise our environmental impact. Here is a few words from their founder, Hannah Cox.
betternotstop is a sustainable impact agency based in Manchester, UK. Our mission is to empower all businesses to deliver positive, sustainable actions for the environment and society.
We have loved working alongside the Kendal Calling team to create, embed and deliver a full range of positive impact initiatives, some behind the scenes and others visible right across the festival site!
Our team has over two decades experience working in live events. We are really excited about all the positive impact Kendal Calling and the Leave Nothing But Memories campaign will have.
We surveyed 100 UK Music Festivals to compile our social and environmental impact report ‘It’s More Than Music’.
The More Than Music report looks at the publicly available data, as well as insights from industry experts, for 100 UK Music Festivals. It explores sustainability and impact in the UK music festival industry as it currently stands. We have written it with an eco-conscious reader in mind and want it to be accessible to all. betternotstop’s aim is to showcase the amazing work the music festival sector is already doing, but ground it in some of the alarming facts we uncovered.
Hopefully, as you read this it will be obvious what we need to do to make our collective actions even bigger and bolder! And remember, whilst reading it consider how you (yes you!) can take positive action to make your music festival or festival experience this summer even more impactful…
we’ve signed up to the following pledges:
