OUR GREEN PLEDGE
Leigh Folk Festival is passionate about lowering its carbon footprint and helping to save our planet in the face of increasing global temperatures.
Here are just a few of the initiatives that we’ve implemented for this year’s event:
When selecting suppliers for the festival we always prefer local businesses, cutting down on transport of infrastructure to and from the event and staff. Where possible we try to reuse infrastructure from previous year’s, such as signage and decor.
Train travel remains overall the most environmentally friendly mode of motorised passenger transport. That’s why we’ve partnered with c2c to encourage public transport to and from the festival, with all festival events just a short walk up the hill from Leigh Train Station.
We strive to recycle at least 60% of waste on site, our public bins are clearly marked for recycling and non-recycling rubbish - the misuse of the bins result in more costs to the festival and so our dedicated volunteer litter pickers ensure the bins are used correctly, sorting through the waste materials to ensure there’s no contamination.
We use festival branded hard plastic cups which are available for purchase for £1.50, this applies to the first drink, thereafter the cup is reusable and is the festival goers to take home as a momento. Over 3,500 reusable cups will be printed for the 2023 event, their use is prioritised, once they’re run out we’ll switch to using disposable recyclable cups.
We request that our food providers and concessions strive to serve their wares in the most environmentally friendly receptacles. They are also asked to take all waste generated with them from site and to dispose of this in accordance with their usual standards. We also encourage our traders to donate surplus food to local charities to avoid waste.
When sourcing festival merchandise we ensure our suppliers have good environmental credentials and this year is no different. We’ve partnered with Blackwater Studios, suppliers of organic T-shirts manufactured by forward thinking ethical suppliers and have over 50 years experience. Their T-shirts are printed with water based inks only, and no plastic film positives are used to create the screens. This year’s festival T-shirt is Climate Neutral®, 100% Organic Cotton Jersey, a T-shirt with a positive social, and a minimum environmental footprint. They’re also Fair Wear Foundation accredited ensuring justice to workers through fair pay, working conditions and no forced or child labour. Get your festival T-shirt for £16.50 from the merchandise tent.
Our programmes are printed on FSC Mix Credit stock meaning the paper is either be from FSC-certified forests, verified as recycled or classed as controlled wood.
Our intention is always to leave the Library Gardens in the condition that we found them - for the future good of the people of the Southend area.