The environmentally-focused music festival Shambala kick started the removal of single-use plastics from festival bars in 2013. It took meat off the menu in 2016. And it became employee-owned earlier this year. 

Now the organisers have set their sights on a bigger challenge: disrupting the capitalist supply chain to prove live events can actively fund environmental repair.

Chris Johnson, the co-founder and managing director of Shambala, said: "Sustainable progress is crucial for our future, but by definition it can only sustain the current state of our ecosystems when what we really need is an active process of repair."

Impact

"We're asking a simple question: what if those profits were used to fund environmental repair instead? Festivals have spent years reducing their environmental footprint. The next step is using their economic footprint to create positive change."

This year, Evrythng’s profits will be distributed among three charities. The Shambala audience can vote to determine the distribution between Kettering Nature Group, Roots and Shoots and Avon Needs Trees. Voting is now open. 

As well as supplying all their products under this not-for-profit model, Evrythng is using their closed-loop, zero waste and zero recycling methodology. Every item of packaging that comes into the festival is either cleaned, stored and reused next year or taken back to the distillery for reuse. 

Shambala’s wider supply chain is also intentionally built around myriad other organisations actively driving change, creating a collective blueprint for a better, fairer and lower-impact live events industry. 

From staffing partnerships with Oxfam and MyCause, to FGH Security as one of Britain’s few Living Wage security providers, or working exclusively with sustainable food and drinks partners, every layer is considered for its social and environmental impact. 

Drums

On-site systems such as Compoost Toilets return festivalgoers’ waste to the land, while Clean Sheet toilet paper channels 100 per cent of its profits into organisations fighting for system change in Britain.

Elsewhere across food and drink, the festival works exclusively with sustainable partners, including Freedom Brewery, Bau Cocktails and local ale providers, as well as organic, local and foraged food traders such as Hedgerow Drinks, Radek’s Chocolate and the NOSH Community Cafe - a volunteer-run initiative raising over £20,000 annually for hard-to-fund projects in three local villages. 

Other food and drink suppliers dedicated to waste reduction include Refill Revolution, a local packaging-free retailer, and Wild & Furrow, which supplies more than 5,000 litres of oat milk to Shambala annually in reusable glass bottles and bulk drums.

This Author

Brendan Montague is an editor of The Ecologist.