Addressing audience travel remains the single largest environmental challenge for international events. Finding low-carbon travel alternatives involves collaboration with partners and starts with leading by example. Written by Charlotte Jackson, Sustainability Lead at Team Love, this guest piece shares her slow travel journey from Bristol to Tisno, Croatia, for Love International.
As a valued, long-standing member of the onboard:earth community across its UK portfolio, Team Love is taking those hands-on lessons and turning them into long-term policy: mapping travel emissions and introducing a mandatory £5 audience climate levy for 2027 in partnership with our Canopy & Coast programme.
“Team Love is the promoter behind Love International festival, held each year in Tisno. A lot of care goes into planning this week-long party on the Dalmatian coast. However, transport is the single biggest contributor to our emissions, so it’s where we know we need to keep focusing.
For Love International 2026, this meant testing what lower-carbon travel could look like in practice. Starting from Bristol, a colleague and I trialled a non-flying route to Tisno.
We took trains from London to Paris to Munich, before bussing through the Alps at sunrise, towards Croatia. After breakfast in Zagreb, we picked up some old film canisters to repurpose as ashtrays at the festival, squeezed in a ride on the world’s shortest funicular railway, and caught the final coach down to Tisno. All in all, the scenic route took 38 hours.
Alongside this, we’ve been improving public transport information during the event, reducing crew emissions where we can, and taking responsibility for what we can’t avoid.
Since 2023, we’ve been measuring and balancing crew flight and airport transfer emissions – with 2026 marking our third year of doing this.
Looking ahead, we’re expanding this approach to audience travel – where the biggest impact sits. Flying is often the most affordable and accessible option for getting to Love International, but it’s something we can’t ignore, as a return flight from the UK to Croatia generates roughly 0.6 tonnes of CO₂ per person.
We believe change happens collectively, through shared responsibility. We’re all experiencing intensifying climate extremes, and we want to keep dancing in Tisno for many years to come.
Working with onboard:earth, we’ve developed a plan to better understand and tackle this impact. Using ticket billing postcode data from 2026, we mapped likely departure airports and calculated associated emissions for travel to Split or Zadar, and what it would take to balance them.
From 2027, we are introducing a mandatory £5 climate levy on all tickets. This will contribute to Onboard’s Canopy & Coast programme, supporting verified climate and nature projects.
Alongside this, we’ll continue improving travel guidance and explore partnerships that can support more sustainable options.
Our travel targets:
- By 2027: Introduce a climate levy on audience tickets
- By 2028: Introduce an artist climate levy
- By 2030: Develop transport partnerships in Croatia
If you’re joining us in Tisno in 2027, remember the journey is part of it! Whether that’s travelling together by land if you have the time, or simply supporting the climate levy as part of buying your festival ticket.”
Learn more about where the £5 climate levy goes with onboard:earth.