ecolibrium: tackling travel emissions in the live events industry

A 2015 report by Powerful Thinking found that audience travel is responsible for 80% of a festival’s carbon emissions. This report, combined with the agreements set out at COP21, prompted a collective of festivals to establish a live events industry response to the climate crisis. The result was ecolibrium. It aims to help festivals, event suppliers, music companies and artists to reduce travel emissions and offset unavoidable ones by investing in climate solutions programmes – supporting ecosystem protection, regeneration and clean energy projects. 

"ecolibrium set out in 2015 to bring the live events industry together in response to the climate crisis – we aim to highlight the negative impact that travel has on the environment and bring our community of events, festivals, suppliers, artists and music companies together to take action to reduce travel impacts, invest in climate solutions, and use our collective voice to encourage and inspire wider action."  Bethan Riach, Communications Manager, ecolibrium 

Armed with information such as The Sustainable Travel Guide, ecolibrium advises on best practice to keep travel emissions as low as possible. The Travel Carbon Calculator tool (which is also available as an app) helps people to log their emissions, and therefore understand the environmental impacts of their journeys. This, in turn, empowers individuals to make a real change as they can see how their emissions lower when they switch up their travel plans. As for unavoidable emissions, ecolibrium has two main programmes that work to counterbalance them: Energy Revolution and Trees+. 

Revolutionising energy solutions

Energy Revolution aims to offset carbon emissions by investing in projects that create cleaner energy sources. 

One of these many projects is The Converging World, which invests in renewable energy in India. It has generated 45 million kWh of clean energy and avoided 41,000 tonnes of CO2 to date. Another project that has benefitted from ecolibrium’s investments is Ecossol, through Abundance Investments, which funds the installation of solar panels in people’s homes.  

Since 2015, ecolibrium’s members have balanced carbon emissions from more than 13 million miles of travel with investments into these projects. This includes over 50 UK festivals and 30 suppliers.

Trees+

Another way in which ecolibrium balances carbon emissions is through their Trees+ programme. Carbon balancing through this project is based on £15 per tonne of CO2e, and this money is split between planting trees in the UK, protecting threatened rainforests, and supporting communities in areas that are most at risk of climate change. 

For example, the Trees+ project has helped Temwa’s tree planting programme in Northern Malawi, which aims to tackle deforestation and help local communities to embed sustainable agriculture practices - ensuring that reforested areas and threatened forests stay protected. Since 2003, Temwa has planted over 1.5 million trees, supported forest management and helped families adopt sustainable farming.

Artists can also choose to balance their travel emissions through ecolibrium’s climate solutions programmes. From 2014 to 2019, Joss Stone did just that as she embarked on her five-year world tour. Her travel emissions were calculated and reduced as much as possible through coach travel, reducing party numbers, and taking more direct flights. Unavoidable emissions were balanced with donations towards wind power generation and reforestation in Tamil Nadu, India, as well as planting nearly 2,000 trees in the UK. 

The power is in our hands

What makes ecolibrium’s work so compelling is the emphasis on the power of the individual. When switching to greener solutions can sometimes seem complicated, their information and tools break it down into easy steps, equipping suppliers, audience members and artists with the ability to make positive changes. This emphasises the fact that, when we speak up about climate change and offer manageable solutions, our individual voices make a powerful collective.