My first DOOF
After working with the wonderful team from Green Chief Recycling at Woodford Folk Festival, Madeline Radke the Queensland representative offered me an opportunity to participate at Earth Frequency Festival (EFF) which I immediately jumped at the chance. From the first time I met Mads it was plain to me that she had a unique way of approaching sustainability, waste & recycling. “Madeleine is intent on utilising festival culture as a platform for reconnecting people in personal and respectful relationship with the land, themselves, and their fellow human beings. And their trash”
I was even more excited to be working on the Greening @ Earth Frequency Festival when Mads developed a role for me as the first Manager of Carbon Offsetting which involved writing up a survey & managing a team of volunteer collectors. The idea behind the survey was to gain the interest from festival attendees about their knowledge and willingness to personally take control of their travel emissions & acceptance of the festivals “Leave No Trace” waste policy. As a community driven festival sustainability is high on the agenda. “Earth Frequency is investing in existing and new initiatives to create a more sustainable festival for the future.”
Being the first time these initiatives were to be trialled we had to be flexible and consider all facets of the operation. Working with the Camping Team who were directing punters to their camp spots we stealthily manoeuvred in between cars so as not to hold up the system and eager travellers from their destination. Hard data is still to be calculated but from speaking with travellers who had driven from various destinations as far as Melbourne they were still stoked to have the opportunity to donate to a worthy project. There was also the availability to offset from the festivals web site when booking tickets.
Happy campers took up the offer of carbon offsetting their travel to & from the event.
The offset project consists of:
• All credits are recognised under the Australian Governments, National Carbon Offset Standard (NCOS).
• Forests Alive work with farmers who own and manage native forests in Tasmania.
• Unlike projects that rely on planting trees in order to generate credits, we are able to use existing forests and also protect all of the biodiversity benefits that native forests provide.
As well as the travel survey we incorporated questions about the festivals “Leave No Trace” waste policy. 60 people were surveyed and over 90% new about the policy and were more than happy to comply and took a general interest in managing their waste and 99% recycled at home.
It was my first DOOF and it was a pleasure to be involved in this festival; it was a happy friendly atmosphere where everyone was having all types of fun, mixed with education and heaps of music.
I would love to hear about events you’ve been to that have similar practices. Do you carbon offset your travels?
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