Boomtown, the UK’s largest independent music and arts festival and its 2020 charity partner TreeSisters, a grassroots movement that supports the restoration of the planet through tropical reforestation and the empowerment of women, have announced an ambitious target; to plant one million trees this year.
With growing concern around the climate crisis, the 66,000 capacity event will use its platform to raise awareness and invite audience members, artists, crew and external partners to work together to restore nature by collectively planting over one million trees. This follows the success of the 2019 campaign that saw Boomtown collaborate with TreeSisters, and plant 71,725 trees to regenerate tropical rainforests around the world. [1Million Trees video]
To contribute to one of the most powerful solutions for climate breakdown and to accelerate the festival’s mission for Chapter 12, Boomtown is asking for support from their active community, which includes all those who attend, perform and work with or at the festival. Audience members have been invited to make a £2 donation when purchasing their ticket or supporters can contribute via an online fundraising platform here.
“As an organisation, we have grown exponentially and with an audience of over 66,0000 people, we want to inspire individuals to work together to create positive social and environmental change. We believe that reforestation is the most effective action we can take to tackle the climate and ecological crisis and we’re asking our community of passionate people from all over the world, to come together to help save our planet – and have fun whilst we’re doing it!.” – Lak Mitchell, Boomtown Fair Co-Founder
Sustainability in the wider context sits very much at the forefront of Boomtown’s ethos and operations and Chapter 11 saw a number of successful green initiatives take place. These included site wide compostable serveware, plus a ban on the sale of all single-use plastics. Sustainable travel was incentivised as well as offsetting and reducing carbon emission from travel and a behaviour change campaign was run to encourage a zero-waste culture among festival goers and the first zero waste camp was introduced. The festival’s full programme of initiatives for 2020 will be announced in April when it launches Green Week.
As a result, the event saw:
- 50% reduction in campsite waste,
- 10% waste reduction per person,
- 43% of waste was recycled and reused
- 3.9 reduction of over tonnes of plastic waste.
- 17% drop in carbon footprint and reduced fuel usage by 21%.
- Eliminated the sale of plastic bottles preventing 225,000 plastic bottles from being sold
- Balanced the CO2 from 537,805 travel miles, from public and artist car travel to Boomtown, (equivalent to 156,340 CO2e) with Energy Revolution.
Commenting on the partnership and Boomtown’s position on sustainability, Claire Dubois, Founder of TreeSisters said,“It’s time for everyone to become climate leaders and climate solutions. We have no more time for apathy or denial, it’s all hands on deck now for our planet and our children’s future. TreeSisters are thrilled to watch Boomtown pick up the climate gauntlet and take leadership on the global stage. Thank you Boomtown for recognizing that your audience is an ecosystem of ecological impact just waiting to happen, and for inviting them to accomplish a shared goal together. One million trees! Bring it on!”
Boomtown is a festival that combines music and theatre with boundary breaking production levels across the site. It has recently announced the festival’s headliners, who will perform across the 27 iconic main stages and unique micro-venues throughout the festival. Headliners include Wu-Tang Clan, Underworld, Kano, Damian ‘JR Gong’ Marley, The libertines, Mura Masa, Kelis through to Pendulum Trinity, Squarepusher, Orbital, Look & The Gang and De La Soul amongst many.