Kambe Events, the team behind Shambala Festival, ran three weekends of socially distant camping this August at their usual festival home, Kelmarsh House & Gardens in Northamptonshire, after Shambala was cancelled due to covid restrictions. The events were a huge success with the 1,250 campers over three weekends giving glowing feedback, as well as rave reviews from the crew, suppliers and local businesses that were involved.
Although ensuring that the events were covid-safe and adhered to current government regulations was a main priority, Kambe didn’t lose sight of their environmental commitments: The Kambe team have built a reputation for being industry leaders when it comes to sustainability. They’ve reduced the carbon footprint of Shambala Festival by 80% and counting, have achieved 100% renewable power, banned the sale of meat and fish and have eradicated single use plastics from their bars and traders.
“Just because we are facing another global crisis doesn’t mean we can afford to ignore climate crisis or hope it will go away. Kambe are going to keep innovating but will do so in as sustainable a way as possible, and not abandon the commitments we have been working towards for so many years.” Jon Walsh, Kambe Events Director
Recognising that travel emissions have a huge impact on an events carbon footprint, £1 from every car park ticket at Carry On Kelmarsh went towards balancing carbon emissions with onboard.earth’s Energy Revolution programme. 100% of these donations will now be invested in clean, renewable energy projects – balancing the equivalent over 4,000 average car miles by helping to power the climate solutions needed to tackle the ‘other’ planetary crisis.
Kambe Events have been working to reduce travel carbon from Shambala’s audience since 2015, by offering sustainable travel initiatives and carbon-balancing emissions. Covid restrictions meant that Kambe couldn’t offer the alternative, more sustainable, travel options to their campers – e.g. shuttle buses from train stations, coaches and car sharing. So with fewer people arriving in more cars it was more important than ever for them to account for the unavoidable carbon emissions. Despite the changes this summer it’s inspiring that Kambe were able to prioritise and incorporate carbon-balancing into their new events.