Isle of Wight, Lightning in a Bottle - green initiatives at summer festivals

(Copyright James Gillham)

Renewable energy, green vendors, recycling bins and FestivalBudis are just some of the environmentally-friendly policies implemented at the upcoming Lightning in a Bottle and Isle of Wight music festivals.

Both the upcoming Isle of Wight Festival in the UK and Lightning in a Bottle in the USA were among the music festivals honored at the fourth annual Greener Festival Awards in 2010.

The awards were conceived by www.agreenerfestival.com, an independent organization run on a voluntary basis by music industry professionals and a team of environmental auditors. The A Greener Festival Awards are designed to reward outdoor music events around the world which had taken environmentally positive action.

This year, the Lightning in a Bottle festival ( http://lightninginabottle.org), held in Silverado, California May 27-30, will continue to implement a variety of environmentally positive policies. The art, music and yoga festival will be powered by renewable energy suppliers and will also charter a number of cross-country buses to transport music fans and reduce their per-person carbon footprint; more information about this service is available on the event's offical site.

Ten days later the legendry Isle of Wight festival ( www.isleofwightfestival.com), June 10-12, featuring seminal bands such as Pulp, Foo Fighters, Kasabian, Kings of Leon, will implement a car-sharing scheme called FestivalBUDI.

Through FestivalBUDI, attendees car-share their travel plans, arranging car pools or hitching a lift. The scheme is designed to ensure that each car travelling to the event is full and therefore reduce the per-person carbon footprint generated by traveling. More information about FestivalBUDI can be found at: http://bit.ly/kYPCSQ.  

Tickets to the Isle of Wight Festival have now sold out but the event will be on various British TV channels and also available to follow online via Facebook ( http://www.facebook.com/iwfestival), Twitter ( @IsleOfWightFest) and MySpace ( http://www.myspace.com/isleofwightfestival).

Other winners of last year's A Greener Festival Awards include the Oya Festival in Norway, this year running August 9-13, ( www.oyafestivalen.com) and Osheaga in Montreal, Canada, this year on July 29-31 ( http://www.osheaga.com/en/).