6. WHAT IS YOUR ADVICE TO OTHER ORGANISERS REGARDING SUSTAINABLE ACCOMMODATION?
Involve guests through communities. We have over the years expanded the number of campsites with strong communities and committed sustainability cultures. At the recent festival, over 28,000 participants stayed in areas with names like 'Clean Out Loud', 'Silent & Clean' and 'Leave No Trace'. The participants themselves build the positive waste culture by, among other things, cleaning up, sorting waste and of course taking their stuff home after the festival. Our ambition is for all our camping areas to be part of the sustainable community.
7. WHAT IS YOUR ADVICE TO OTHER ORGANISERS REGARDING SUSTAINABLE TRAVEL & TRANSPORT?
Partnerships play an important role in sustainable development. This also applies to transport. That's why we have in collaboration with Danish State Railways (DSB) established our own train station, which many of our participants use on their journey to and from the festival.
8. WHAT IS YOUR ADVICE TO OTHER ORGANISERS REGARDING SUSTAINABLE FOOD?
Focus on biodiversity through ecology and reduce the climate impact of food. We increased the organic share of food from 30% to 90% over four festivals, and in 2019 alone 130 stalls sold more than 1.6 million, of which every fifth was 100% organic. It has taken years of planning to get here, and we have been in close dialogue with stalls, associations and suppliers from the very beginning. At the same time we are increasing the number of plant-based dishes.
9. WHAT IS YOUR ADVICE TO OTHER ORGANISERS REGARDING A SUSTAINABLE USE OF MATERIALS AND COMMUNICATION?
Choose materials and products with care and use e.g. EU-ecolabel. Temporary events have a responsibility to extend the life of materials and thus avoid wasting resources. After the 2019 festival 18 tons of wood were sold again as reused and recycled wood through the GENTRÆ initiative, which Stark, among others, is behind. We also have our own volunteer-driven reuse-initiative, which is called ReUse. Here volunteers have made sure that building materials, furniture, flowers and decorations were reused by other organisations and associations.
10. WHAT IS YOUR ADVICE TO OTHER ORGANISERS REGARDING SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY?
Don’t be afraid to initiate difficult conversations - also in public. Changes must happen with the outside world, and our experience is that participants very much want to contribute to positive change and improvement. Involve NGOs, companies and public institutions that have knowledge and expertise in a certain field. Our initiative ‘Orange Together' – about abusive and transgressive behaviour is about preserving and developing the positive space, and here we, together with participants and professional partners, pushed for social change and experienced a huge and positive commitment.