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In the last two years, Battersea Park Fireworks has doubled in size. Read on, as Enable, the display’s organiser, discusses what steps it took to make the two-day event more sustainable
This year, Enable – a not-for-profit organisation that works in partnership with Wandsworth Council to deliver health, leisure and community services and events across the borough – took extra steps to ensure Battersea Park Fireworks 2022 was the most sustainable fireworks display yet.
Over two nights, more than 95,000 people gathered to watch rockets explode in the November sky, as well as experience a traditional bonfire and an alternative bonfire display.
As the largest single event that Enable manages, Gemma Bechervaise, event director, and her team (Annabel Dilks, James Crute, and Simge Uncular) recognised that they could make Battersea Park Fireworks – delivered by Titanium Fireworks – more sustainable.
Bechervaise explained: “We focused our efforts on reducing carbon emissions, choosing sustainable suppliers, and offsetting the travel of all the attendees by working with a Verified Carbon Standard (VCS) reduction project.”
Enable carried out extensive research to better understand how its audience traveled to the event, which has doubled in size in the last two years – 38 per cent of the display’s audience walked to the event and 43 per cent traveled by public transport.
The organisation worked with Event Decision to track and measure all greenhouse gas emissions from the event weekend [November 5 and 6]. Only one bonfire was lit to reduce carbon emissions. On day two, the event featured an “alternative” bonfire in the form of a light installation.
What’s more, no single-use plastic was issued on site, all waste was sorted with nothing sent to landfill, and truck movements and deliveries were minimised.
“The final sustainability report is still in progress, as we have to review all operations with our staff, suppliers, and contractors and process all data to understand our total carbon impact,” continued Bechervaise. “We performed this same process prior to the event based on data from previous years with the aim that we could use this report to address our areas of concern and identify where we could reduce carbon and improve our sustainability.
“We are hopeful that the work that the team put into this has significantly improved our results. Once we have the final report, any leftover emissions that we are unable to mitigate will be offset using certified offsetting schemes.”
The Battersea Park Fireworks display – which consisted of 750kg of explosive content – will be offset directly by Titanium Fireworks, which partners with a certified UK tree planting scheme to remove the same amount of CO2 from the atmosphere.
According to Bechervaise, Enable has taken part in workshops to create an organisation-wide action plan. This will act as a roadmap, with the aim of becoming fully carbon neutral. Enable wishes to change how it procures goods and services and is looking at how it can provide clean energy to traders at its events.
“We are also keen that our supplier and contractors support us in our sustainability goals,” Bechervaise added. “We are planning to go a step further by introducing environmental incentives and penalties for those who don’t work within our sustainability framework. We want to be educating our key partners on how they can work on our site and create less impact on the direct and wider environment.”
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