The Isle of Wight Festival was an ideal choice for the DECC because of the success they’ve had over the last two years in making the festival a more sustainable event with their intelligent programme of Eco Actions. These include the use of more renewable energy; promoting responsible travel; as well as launching a headline environmental campaign Give Bees a Chance.

The festival also offers a diverse audience profile owing to the eclectic mix of bands they attract each year and with this year’s headliners The Prodigy, Razorlight and Neil Young, the audience will again be a mix of young and old giving DECC a unique chance to promote the launch of the new Copenhagen website while the festival itself showcases what they as a business are doing locally to reduce their emissions.

Ed Miliband, Secretary of State for the Department of Energy and Climate Change comments: “Congratulations to the Isle of Wight Festival for going green and helping to spread the message on cutting carbon. The UK Government is working hard to reduce the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, and we’ll be heading to Copenhagen in December determined to achieve an historic international deal to tackle climate change”

He continues “But we all need to play a part in helping to combat global warming. Through the partnership between DECC and the Isle of Wight Festival’s environmental consultants Eco Action Partnership, we’ll be able to spread the message about the importance of individual actions, while urging people to sign up to a pledge calling on all Governments to reach an agreement on global action.”

The collaboration sees a video message from Ed Miliband broadcast to festival-goers on the main stage, throughout the three day event, encouraging people to visit the new website and sign up to the campaign; and as a way of saying thank-you to the festival for helping to spread the word the DECC have donated solar panels to power some of the backstage area and have provided the local Scouts and Guides, who will be on site collecting money for the Give Bees a Chance campaign, with specially designed T-Shirts.

John Giddings, Isle of Wight Festival Promoter comments: “Last year we employed Eco Action Partnership to implement a five year plan to make the festival more sustainable and together we are now in the second year of what is already a well received programme of Eco Actions, tackling our main negative impacts which are Waste, Travel and Energy. The collaboration with the Department of Energy and Climate Change allows us to promote the importance of reducing emissions on a much bigger scale which will hopefully send a strong message to other businesses and individuals that by working together towards a common goal we can make a huge difference to the future of our planet.”

The programme of Eco Actions at this year’s festival are listed below:

Did you forget something?

Last year 500 Tents and 600 sleeping bags were left behind after the festival, which narrowly missed being sent to landfill. Contrary to popular belief most of the tents will not be taken by relief missions to overseas trouble spots, as they are not big enough or strong enough, therefore in most cases there is no choice but to send them to landfill.  With thanks to the hard work of the local scouts who collected all of the forgotten tents and then found homes for them the festival was saved from this inevitability last year. This year however opportunities like this will be limited, so the Eco Action team are urging people to take them home ready to use again next year.

Other Action on Waste initiatives include, the cup return scheme. A success rate of 92% was recorded last year for cup returns to Central Catering’s Cash It Don’t Trash It dedicated points where punters were given 10p back for every cup returned in a reasonable state. This meant that the main arena saw an amazing improvement on litter and all of the cups were recycled. The scheme is back again this year with the big 100% in sight.

Central Catering also continue with their trader policy to use completely biodegradable packaging including cutlery, napkins and food containers. For all of those traders that forget or run out there will be a wholesale operator on site to supply these items.

Go on Share It

For the second year running the festival has joined forces with the National Liftshare Network to offer a cheap and sociable way to get to the festival and in the process cut carbon emissions. You can sign up to the scheme, which safely connects drivers and passengers online by visiting www.isleofwightfestival/lift-share

And the great news for this year is by signing up and using Liftshare members will get priority parking on site making it quicker you to get in and start enjoying the weekend

Get on a Bike
With partners London Bicycle Tour Company the Eco Action team are offering a bike hire scheme for people who fancy seeing more of the island or just need extra supplies.

Bike hire opening times are Thursday 2pm–7pm; then every morning from 7am-1pm. It is £5 for an hour; £8 for 2 hours; and £10 for 3 hours. With the bike a map of the island will also be supplied thanks to the IOW Council featuring routes to some places of interest, as a way of further promoting youth tourism to the island all year round.

For people bringing their own bikes to the festival there will be designated secure bike racks in the campsite.

New for the this year is The Big Festival Bike Ride which is taking place on Saturday and Sunday mornings leaving at 10am, from the London Tour Company hire point in the campsite. It is a guided tour where participants will head to Merstone stopping off on the way at sites of environmental importance where our charity partners Gift to Nature will tell more. It costs a tenner plus hire fee and will last about 2 hours so everyone will be back in time to see the bands.

Payment for bike hire is by credit or debit card only.

Visit The Hive in the Arboretum

A new chill out zone has been created called The Hive, in the Arboretum, which is completely powered by bio-diesel thanks to local business JMC Plant who have collected old chip fat from local pubs to use in the generators. The Hive is a mix of tasty Isle of Wight food and drink; straw bales to relax on; live guitar music; and a place to learn more about the festival’s environmental work with partners Gift to Nature including headline campaign for the second year running GIVE BEES A CHANCE. Medina High School’s Green Team also has a yurt in The Hive to showcase their environmental work in association with the festival.

Give Bees a Chance

This year the festival will be raising money by selling bee bugs in order to initiate a bee research project in the south of the Isle of Wight, focusing on habitat benefits for the solitary mining bee - the results of which could be used worldwide in a bid to protect the dwindling bee population.  Half of the monies raised by the sale of the bee bugs will also be donated to the islands Scouts and Guides to allow them to install solar power to their camping area in Corf.  For more information on this please go to www.isleofwightfestival.com/givebeesachance

Additionally to the research project the Give Bees a Chance campaign includes the sponsorship of six bee-hives on a farm in Limerstone owned by island bee keeper Mary Case. Aaron Fletcher of the band The Bees has customised each of these in gold as a nod to this year’s headline act Neil Young and each one is named after a local conservation project the festival supports as part of their corporate membership of Gift to Nature.

Environmental Credentials

The festival is being carbon audited with the help of local business On Wight, this is to create a benchmark from which to improve year on year.

This year also sees the start of a new relationship between the festival and online resource, eventberry, in a drive to be among the first major festivals to become BS8901 compliant.

Seventeen Events, who recently launched eventberry, helped trial the standard before it was published in November 2007. Andrew Williams, managing director of Seventeen Events, commented, “It has been fantastic to work with Eco Action Partnership on the Isle of Wight Festival. I feel it’s a great example of how modern technology can help make events more sustainable”

-Ends-

Editor’s Notes:

1.The new British Standard BS8901 has been developed specifically for the events industry with a purpose of helping the industry to operate in a more sustainable manner. The standard defines the requirements for a sustainable event management system to ensure an enduring and balanced approach to economic activity, environmental responsibility and social progress.

It requires organisations to identify and understand the effects that their activities have on the environment; and put measure in place to minimize the negative effects. **

** Resource – www.bsi-global.com

2.The Isle of Wight Festival runs from the 12th – 14th June, to find out more regarding this year’s event please go to www.isleofwightfestival.com

3.The Government’s Act on CO2 website is currently under construction

4.Interviews with John Giddings are available on request by contacting

           Juliet Ross-Kelly @ EAP

5.Comments from the Department of Energy and Climate Change are available by emailing Lisa Miller on lisa.miller@decc.gsi.gov.uk