Words by Abi Scaife
How do you turn a temporary event into a sustainable one?
Roskilde Festival is a music festival based in Denmark that is doing its utmost to be more eco-friendly. When the Smiley News team headed down for the Final Days of the festival at the beginning of July, we caught up with Sanne Stephansen, the Head of Sustainability at Roskilde Festival to hear more about what they are doing.
The Roskilde Festival doesn’t just want to put on an amazing event, they want people to leave inspired to make a difference in the world, and that starts with the eight days they spend on site.
“It also has to be easier to do the right thing,” says Sanne. “It's our role as a festival to make sure that's a possibility.”
To that end, Sanne has helped Roskilde to improve and upscale the way they think about sustainability - starting with waste. Gone are the days of dropping your rubbish wherever you walk because you’re at a festival, or chucking everything into the same bin liner.
Camps around the grounds, as well as the 28,000 volunteers who run the day-to-day operations at the festival, were armed this year with separate bins. By dividing everything up into metals, plastic, glass and ‘general’ waste, festivalgoers are able to recycle even when away from home.
As any upcycling fanatic will tell you, the key to a circular economy is to turn the old into the new, and weaknesses into strengths. One such tripping point is a strange contractual requirement for all food stalls to have their panelling painted black - an unexplained hangover from the ’90s, suggests Sanne.
As a way to combat waste, the Roskilde Festival collects surplus paint throughout the year, with the help of their partners. This includes any paint that has been opened and returned, or unfinished, and prevents it from going to landfill and polluting nature.
“It doesn't create a lot different a lot impact in itself, but it puts up some question marks as to the way we think about aesthetics,” says Sanne.
“When we have to reuse more, we also have to change the way that we look upon things and find them more or less beautiful and inviting to look upon.”
In 2022, the festival phased out diesel-powered generators, cutting out 72,000 litres of diesel. Though it’s not off the ground yet, they are now working incredibly hard to power as much of the festival on electricity, or through clean energy, as possible.
Sanne adds: “We also expanded the electrical grid beneath us so it's possible to plug in and get more clean energy to run our food stalls and our stages.”
One of the biggest sustainability issues for any festival, other than waste, is transportation. From festivalgoers to performers, people will travel enormous distances to get to the festival.
“50% of our CO2 emissions come from transportation from the artists and the participants,” admits Sanne. “But it's difficult to manage because it is not within [the] borders of the festival.”
To combat this, the festival works very closely with local public transport and even has plenty of space for people to store their bikes.
As Doja Cat is unlikely to cycle in from the US for her show, they also network with other music festivals in Europe, meaning that artists don’t need to fly back and forth between performances. Through this networking, they are able to move between festivals without flying - or at least, without flying so far, and so often - which helps to reduce their carbon footprint.
Sometimes it feels like a neverending game of whack-a-mole; one sustainability problem arises, you deal with it, and another pops up, only to be repeated again and again.
Perfection isn’t realistic; it’s unlikely we will ever be able to create a wholly unproblematic music festival; but where many others may have thrown their hands up at that hurdle, Roskilde is working hard for change.
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The Brother’s Trust. This charity is run by Tom Holland’s family, aiming to shine a light on charities where generous donations can be used to maximum effect. Find out more.
CARE International UK. CARE is there to help people when they need it most. They are one of the world's leading humanitarian agencies, delivering life-saving assistance when disaster strikes. Find out more here.
Create. Create is the UK's leading charity empowering lives, reducing isolation and enhancing wellbeing through the creative arts. Support them here.
This article aligns with the UN SDG Climate Action and Partnerships for the Goals.
