“Adventures in Regenerative Futures“
Now then! We’ve covered where we’ve been, and where we’re currently at, in our latest deep-dive Impact Reports. So it’s time to look to the future, and where we’re going next!
Beyond Sustainability…
The ‘S’ word gets thrown around an awful lot (not least by ourselves!) – but something’s been bugging us..
Sustainability literally means to ‘sustain’. However, the current challenges of the climate crisis, ecological breakdown and profound global inequalities means that to ‘sustain’ the status quo is a one way ticket to planetry destruction. Simply put, sustainability doesn’t cut the mustard anymore.
We’ve got to go way further than ‘sustainable’. We need to repair and improve our current systems, the state of nature and how we collaborate as a species!
Whilst we’re very much aware that we are actually a music and arts festival (rather than a government organisation, think tank or small country) we’ve always believed in thinking big – ‘being the change’ and setting the bar as high as we possibly can…
Our ambition is that, rather than just being sustainable, Shambala becomes profoundly regenerative.
“What does that even mean?”
- It means that everything we consume, and everything we do, results in a measurable improvement on what was before. This extends far beyond the festival weekend and the festival site – positively impacting and improving our entire, diverse and far-reaching supply chain.
- For food, it means the producers we choose to work with will actively enhance biodiversity and soil quality, rather than depleting it.
- For materials and services, it means the companies we choose to work with will be committed to actively improving the environment, and be ethical employers who treat their staff well.
- It means a commitment from us, to actively improve the land we party on, and to contribute positively and significantly to the local community that surrounds us.
- It means not waiting until 2050 to be carbon positive, when we all know that’s far too late.
Is it going to be easy? Absolutely not! Are we committed to doing it anyway? Abso-bloody-lutely.
By 2025, we aim to…
- Have a supply chain that is totally free from funding conflict, fossil fuels, unethical employment practices and environmental damage
- Design and successfully implement a completely regenerative food sourcing system, with clear environmental impact labels on all our consumables, to enable our audiences to make informed decisions on what they’re filling their bellies with, on site.
- Implement a fully circular ‘materials economy’ – designing out waste completely from Shambala. No waste from the build, no waste from the break, and no waste from the audience.
We’ve set out some Guiding Principles, to underpin all our efforts and keep us on the right track...
- Ultimately, we will embrace regenerative practices across the festival
- We will apply circular economy principles to all the materials we use
- We’ll underpin all our climate actions with an understanding of social justice
- We will be better than climate neutral (using GHG Protocol)
- The challenges we face are urgent – we will move quickly, innovating and taking risks
We’ll measure our progress annually, on our Impact Reporting Platform. 2022 will be used as our base year for all measurements.
How are we going to do it?
1. GOVERNANCE: We’ll get our own house in order, with certified ethical and sustainable practices. By 2025, we’re aiming…
- For Kambe Events (the company behind Shambala) to be Certified BCorp
- To have a fully certifiably ethical and sustainable supply chain, using external certifications and standards
- We’ll also continue to use third party tools to have our emissions reporting independently verified
2. MATERIALS: Going fully circular. By 2025, we’re aiming…
- For ALL the materials purchased to produce Shambala to be sustainably sourced.
- For all our material ‘loops’ to be closed, with zero residual waste
- Where possible, we want to ensure materials are reused within our festival ‘ecosystem’ rather than sent off to be reused elsewhere
3. ENERGY: Full Renewable. By 2025, we’re aiming…
- For all the energy used for heating, cooling and powering equipment on our festival site to continue to come from renewable sources (we’re already doing this!)
- To reduce our use of sustainable biofuels by a third, in favour of solar, battery and grid connections using green tariffs.
- The festival industry average for fuel consumption per person, per day, is currently 0.5 litres. Shambala’s is currently 0.147 litres – we’re aiming to get this down to 0.1litres.
4. TRAVEL & TRANSPORT: Low Carbon & Climate Neutral
We’ll be closely monitoring and tracking ALL our travel emissions, be it:
- Our own ‘in house’ vehicles, used for onsite travel and transport to and from the festival.
- How our audience, artists, contractors and crew make their way to and from the festival.
- Transporting our site infrastructure, production materials, on-site consumables, caterers and all the other bits and bobs that make up a festival.
By 2025, we’re aiming…
- For ALL our onsite transport to be 100% renewable – be it HVO, electric, or human powered
- For 40% of our audience to be travelling to the festival by low carbon, shared transport (coaches, trains, bikes and electric vehicle)
- For any the artists who fly in from overseas to use a Sustainable Aviation Fuel replacement initiative
- For 80% of the cars that come to site to contain at least 3 people
- For all those unavoidable, pesky, residual emissions that we just can’t shake, to be balanced through our partner Ecolibrium through investments in regeneration projects.
5. Food & Drink: Regenerative Sourcing
By 2025, we’re aiming for ALL the food and drink sourced for Shambala to have a positive impact on emissions, soil, air and water, and to be sourced from regenerative practices.
A quick note on calculating our food & drink emissions:
- The emissions used to transport our food and drink to and from the festival site will be included in our Travel & Transport impact reporting.
- The emissions from serving materials and composting food-waste will be included in our Materials impact reporting.
- The emissions from cooking, cooling and processing food and drink on site will be included in our Energy impact reporting.
- Therefore, the emissions counted in our Food & Drink section are only from the producing, making & processing off-site.
Food: By 2025, we’re aiming…
- For the climate impact of the average of all dishes served at Shambala to be no more than 0.5kg of CO2e (also known as a ‘One Planet Plate). When you consider that the UK dish average factors in at around 2.5kg per meal, a One Planet Plate is seriously low impact.
- For 80% of the total amount of ingredients used in our festival food to be certified organic, or from regenerative sources
- For 80% of the total ingredients used in our food to be sourced locally (within a distance of 200 km)
- For 100% of the edible food and ingredients left over after Shambala to be redistributed for people to eat
- For 100% of food waste created at the festival to be composted for land use
Drinks: By 2025, we’re aiming…
- For the climate impact for the average of ALL drinks served at Shambala to be within the limits of 1Kg CO2e per litre
- For 80% of the drinks we serve up at our bars to be certified organic, or from regenerative resources
- For 80% of the drinks we were to be sourced locally (within a distance of 200km)
7. Carbon Emissions: Neutrality. By 2025, we’re aiming…
- To measure aaaabsolutely all or our emissions, to report back on them transparently and to reduce our overall footprint across all ‘scopes’*
- Shambala is already a net positive event – but we still wish to reduce emissions from travel, food, water, energy and materials.
- Excluding food, we’re aiming to be a zero emissions event, on site.
8. Leadership: Active contribution to change in the festival sector. By 2025, we’re aiming…
- To set up a ‘Living Lab’ at Shambala and invite our festival organiser peers to come and have a nosy at how we do things, and share our knowledge. This is part of our commitment to raising the bar within the wider festival industry.
- To create and publicly share reports on our new initaitives, explaining how we did it, what worked well and how other events can do it too. We’ve got started on this already – check out our Sustainable Guide to Set Building, here!
- To collaborate with our fellow event organisers wherever possible, and to take an active part in industry wide campaigns that push for a better future.
- To use our platform to inspire change within our audience
- To educate! We get a huge amount of requests for knowledge, interviews and statistics from students that frustratingly we just haven’t historically had capacity to provide. So, we’re committing to building a new resource hub for students, where they can find all the information they need. We’ll also commit to taking part in 5 dissertation interviews and providing work experience and shadowing opportunities where we can.
- We will develop partnerships with brilliant organisations wherever we can to support action and amplify messages.