onboard.earth has partnered with the UK Festival Awards (UKFA) to bring the new ‘Transport Impact Innovator Award’ to the 2023 event. Back for its 18th edition on Tuesday, Dec 5th, in Manchester, the UKFA is a celebration of the best of the festival industry, with award categories ranging from Best Large, Medium and Small Festival to Best Marketing Campaign or Best Festival Production.
The Transport Impact Innovator Award has been added in acknowledgement of the festivals who are making progress in addressing emissions from travel to and from events – often the most significant source of carbon emissions at UK Greenfield events, and one of the hardest to reduce in the face of current trends and the UK’s transport systems.
Andy Lenthall, CEO, UK Festival Awards comments, “We decided to introduce the category to recognise those festivals that are tackling the toughest sustainability challenge – transport-related emissions. By doing this, we’re hoping to encourage others and to learn from these innovators and pioneers.”
We are delighted to announce the shortlist for the new Travel Award and share the onboard.earth judges comments.
- 2000Trees Festival: “2000 Trees has shown leadership in fully carbon auditing their event, and they have acknowledged not only current travel emissions, but historical carbon, through climate investments.”
- Above & Beyond at the Anjunabeach Brighton show at On The Beach: “Anjuna Beats continue to show impressive innovation, in this case working with You.Smart.Thing tools to engage audiences with personal travels plans and understand impacts and travel choices.”
You can read a full case study of how ‘You.Smart.Thing’ and Anjuna Beats worked together on Above & Beyond at the Anjunabeach Brighton show at On The Beach in our Inspiration Pages. - Bluedot: A sustainability trailblazer, Bluedot offset 100% of audience travel emissions in 2022 with renewable energy projects through onboard.earth.
- Boomtown Fair: Boomtown has been working for years on reducing audience travel to the festival through incentives, initiatives and education. In 2019, they introduced the Green Transport Citizen Ticket – with discounted ticket price and early entry, which doubled public transport in the first year. In 2023, they set about recording all travel emissions, recording a third of all supplier journeys, and they are aiming for 100% in 2024.
- Greenbelt Festival “Greenbelt have shown an exemplary approach to understanding and influencing travel behaviour, through surveys and educating attendees about the benefits of eco-conscious travel choices.“
- Junction 2: “ In their first year of tackling transport emissions, the Junction 2 team achieved an amazing feat – recording a total of 546 entries over the period of 17 days for production travel (which accounted for 98% of all vehicles coming to site), and data on audience and crew travel, enabling them to fully assess their carbon footprint, as part of an ambitious three year net zero strategy.”
- The Green Gathering: “A forerunner in sustainability in events, the Green Gathering has put in place a complete set of policies and services that help people to travel green, and even have artist transport and medics on trikes and bikes!”
- Timber Festival: Timber’s green wristband scheme offers green travellers rewards such as 10% off on meals from selected food vendors, and for local audience, there are loads of benefits and prizes for walking.
View all the awards and shortlists at https://www.festivalawards.com/shortlists-2023/ and buy tickets to be there on the night and hear the winners announced!