The event charity ecolibrium celebrated its community’s collective investment of over £650,000 in climate projects to address the impact of travel at events, in Bristol’s Artist’s Residence. Feb, 2024
Over 80 members and supporters of the ecolibrium community attended the event to hear from the ecolibrium team and environmental project partners about this significant climate investment milestone, following donations collected from members to acknowledge the environmental impacts of travel since the charity began in 2016 through to 2023.
Those attending the event also learned about the new partnership with Ticketsellers to launch the industry’s largest travel survey for festivals, were treated to a new video highlighting the issues and actions being taken and heard inspirational talks from some of ecolibrium’s climate project partners: Temwa UK, Energy Garden, and Bristol Energy Co-operative explaining the positive effect of the donations.
ecolibrium trustee and co-founder of Futerra agency Ed Gillespie, was among the guests, he said:
“Great that we all got to take time out of our busy schedules and share in the success and achievements of ecolibrium with like-minded people. We’re on a long journey to change hearts and minds and it was good to stop and enjoy the view along the way and recognise our significant achievements, as we now refocus on the road ahead, energised to connect with the wider festival and events sector.”
Founded by festival organisers to tackle travel emissions to live events, typically the largest source of carbon emissions at greenfield music festivals, ecolibrium’s mission is to move low carbon travel into the heart of live events culture and unite their community of events, music companies, crew and artists in environmental restoration.
The total investment to date is shown in key impact metrics:
- £650,000+ invested in environmental restoration projects
- 21,700+ acres of threatened rainforest protected to sink carbon & preserve biodiversity
- 160+ members including live events, suppliers, artists and music industry companies
- 65,880+ trees planted to regenerate ecosystems & create livelihoods.
- 10 community-benefit renewable energy projects funded
- 620,000+ event audiences engaged with climate action projects
In 2023 alone, ecolibrium worked with over 50 members, including music festivals and their audiences, event conferences, sporting events, suppliers and artists to measure travel emissions, find ways to reduce impacts and collect donations for environmental restoration projects.
This year, ecolibrium continued to work with its four founding festival members, Shambala, Boomtown, Kendal Calling, and Bluedot – with long-standing members, 2000Trees, Festival of Thrift, Love Saves the Day, Forwards Festival, AEG’s All Points East and BST Hyde Park – and they welcomed new festival members, Greenman, Truck Fest, Tramlines, Broadwick Live’s Drum Sheds Festival, Dockyards, and Silverworks Island.
Sporting events included, Ourea Events, Threshold Sports, Love Trails and new members Trail Running Scotland and Ultra X. Artists Nick Mulvey and Novo Amor measured tour travel and donated to address impacts, and suppliers such as Harrier UK and GMC Events. Through their partnership with Isla, ecolibrium also supports event agencies such as Chorus, Strata and Racoon events to make climate investments on behalf of event clients.
Donations are channelled directly to ecolibrium’s network of established environmental project partners through two programmes: Energy Revolution and Trees+
2023 donations to Energy Revolution will be invested with:
- Energy Garden, a not-for-profit Community Benefit Society that works with local communities to invest in renewable energy generation, green transportation infrastructure, improve air quality and biodiversity, and empower communities and young people to take climate action.
ecolibrium’s Trees+ programme funded:
- Temwa, a charity that supports the development of self-sufficient communities in Northern Malawi by supporting projects in education, health, agriculture, forestry, and microfinance.
- The Rainforest Trust’s Rainforest Climate Action Fund, which supports projects that store and sequester vast quantities of carbon to help in the fight against climate change.
- A peatland and forest conservation project in Katingan, Indonesia (VSC, REDD+) working towards the restoration and preservation of the ecosystem while supporting local communities with a development programme
To join ecolibrium’s growing network of taking action on the industry’s greatest environmental impact and find out more contact bethan@ecolibrium.earth or visit www.ecolibrium.earth