PSA: THE BIGGER PICTURE
CLIMATE CONTROL Founder of Plaster Creative Communications, Graham Brown, highlights the importance of tackling climate change in live touring.
suppliers – such as Julie’s Bicycle, PSA, AFO, AIF, NCASS, NOEA, Lansdown Warwick, Festival Republic, Smart Power, Kambe, Zap, Plaster – all giving their time and experience to create a free-to-access knowledge bank via conferences, a website and e-newsletters. Seven years ago, when I joined the experts sitting around the table, there was already a lot of knowledge and passion focused on festival sustainability. The main focus was on energy use – identified as one of the major contributors to a festival’s onsite carbon, but that was widening to take in all elements of a festival’s carbon impact. There was also an ambition to engage with the industry more widely. These were the pioneers struggling to turn knowledge into action across an industry, and with very little resources. My modest contribution has been in supporting the effort to communicate their expertise and passion. The warning signs were there – the planet’s ecosystem was in trouble. Julie’s Bicycle created IG tools to measure carbon impact, offered consultancy and mapped out processes enabling venues and organisers to measure the key areas of their carbon impact. A Greener Festival also established the A Greener Festival Award, offering environmental assessments, awards and training assessors to get hands-on in helping festivals measure and reduce their carbon impact. Festivals like Shambala, Green Gathering, Latitude and Greenbelt were the vanguards of sustainable practices, years ahead of the curve with their approaches. This was all great work. However, only a tiny minority took it seriously. I worked with many clients and saw behind the scenes of a lot of events who were at best sceptical or, worse still, dismissive. Sometimes it felt like we were nailing a jelly message to a wall. Five years ago, Powerful Thinking authored the first The Show Must Go On Report, launched at the UK Festival Awards, with chapters covering energy, waste, transport and audience travel, water and food, which began to make waves. The simultaneous launch of Vision:2025, a pledge to achieve a 50% reduction in festival-related carbon footprint, quickly attracted 40 members. Then Sir David Attenborough dragged the plastic issue and wider climate and ecological emergency into the mainstream consciousness. Greta Thunberg engaged a generation that didn’t care, Extinction Rebellion brought cities to a standstill – and now even Coldplay have stopped touring over climate concerns. Pretty much every rational person now acknowledges the reality of this climate emergency, and while there may be a few years between forecasts around tipping points, it is universally clear that urgent action is required. Maybe the jelly is now sticking to the wall. There is a growing
Over the past two decades, I’ve enjoyed a fair few bike rides – followed by a fair few refreshing beers – with my old mucker, Andy Lenthall. We’ve also contributed to numerous industry conference panels over the years, talking everything from staging safety to working hours and mental health. In recent years, we’ve sat shoulder-to-shoulder on the steering group, Powerful Thinking, looking at an issue that is far wider than the live events sector: tackling the climate emergency. Many TPi readers will be familiar with this project, which is dedicated to researching and sharing best practice for outdoor event and festival sustainability. Formed by Julie’s Bicycle and Shambala’s co-founder, Chris Johnson, in 2000, it’s been a truly collaborative experience. Steering Group members include representatives from trade associations, festivals and 88
