ecolibrium doubled its active members in 2022 and balanced 13.4 million travel miles with climate investments.

In 2022, 60 festivals, events, suppliers and music companies engaged with ecolibrium to understand how best to tackle audience, artist and supplier travel miles. With unavoidable carbon emissions balanced with funding for ecosystem protection and regeneration, supporting communities on the frontline of climate change; and investment in community-scale clean energy projects.

Festivals taking part in ecolibrium’s mission in 2022 include AEG Presents’ BST Hyde Park and All Points East, Festival Republic’s Wilderness Festival and Community, Love Saves the Day, Shambala, Boomtown, Kendal Calling and Bluedot. Threshold Sports, Ourea Events, Love Trails and Trail Running Scotland used ecolibrium’s model across their portfolio of mass participation trail running events, to engage audiences in acknowledging, reducing and carbon balancing travel emissions.

Graham Brown, trustee of ecolibrium, said: “It is very encouraging to see significantly more events now measuring and acting to reduce, emissions, as we come out of the pandemic. As ecolibrium’s event membership grows, there is huge potential to engage more audiences in the move to low carbon travel and ecolibrium is able to channel more funds to the environmental project partners who are taking vital action to restore and protect ecosystem and make clean energy accessible to more communities in the UK.“

Festival coach providers Tuned in Travel and Big Green Coach also worked with ecolibrium; supporting members to reduce travel emissions by reducing the number of cars on the road with dedicated coaches to events and then carbon balancing all coach emissions. Event production companies, such as Strata and GMC Events International worked with ecolibrium on behalf of their clients to address travel emissions, while event suppliers, Harrier Safety, Liquiline and Electric Wheels measured and balanced event travel-related travel; helping to address event carbon impacts from the supply chain.

To further support the supply chain in reducing travel impacts, 2022 saw Sunbelt Rentals welcome ecolibrium as charity partner for 2022-23. Sunbelt and ecolibrium are united around a shared commitment to support the live events industry in driving carbon emissions down and positive climate action forward.

ecolibrium encourages members to adopt low carbon travel plans, working first to measure and understand travel footprints through tools, guides and resources, and finding ways to reduce emissions. Addressing unavoidable emissions in 2022, ecolibrium has invested member donations into four climate action projects:

• Planting more than 6,500 trees with communities in Northern Malawi who are already suffering the worst effects of climate.
• Protecting more than 3,800 acres of threatened rainforest with the Rainforest Trust’s Climate Action Fund.
• Carbon balancing more than 2,700 tCO2e through a forest and coastal conservation project in Guatemala’s Mesoamerican Biological Corridor.
• Installing more than 119 solar panels with Energy Garden; a project working across London to generate solar power and create community gardens in disused areas of the city’s railways stations.

Image: Bluedot/George Harris