Glastonbury 1 Sports 0 It’s Glastonbury week. The world’s most famous festival kicks off tomorrow at Worthy Farm in Somerset. Over 200,000 people will attend on a site of around 1,100 acres (that's the equivalent of more than 500 football pitches). The logistics and infrastructure of what is essentially a pop-up city are mind boggling. But it works. Glastonbury has had a long association with environmental causes, sustainability central to the festival long before anyone else was thinking about it. There are a constant stream of innovations including a huge wind turbine powering hundreds of stalls, solar powered stages, having an on-site recycling centre, every production area of the festival electrically powered. There is even an initiative this year to recycle human pee into fertiliser… Glastonbury pushes sustainability innovation because the Eavis family cares deeply about it. If they are showing the way, other big, headline events, particularly those in sport, have a long way to go. I’m not expecting to see compostable toilets at Premier League games but using the huge media power and on-site formats of many clubs, stadiums and other sporting venues to visibly support and spread important climate and environmental messages and campaigns is the least they could do. Many sports clubs and governing bodies talk a good sustainability game now. Quite a few have hired a sustainability person to deal with all their ESG stuff but you get the sense that sustainability is a bit of a hassle. The potential of large sporting events to shift the dial on how vast swathes of the population think the environment, climate and planet is huge. But it remains just that - potential - and slow to be realised. What do you think needs to happen for it to be unlocked? #Glastonbury #Sustainability #Sport #ClimateCommuunications
James Faulkner
4mo
Are you there?
Breda Bubear
4mo
It’s a lot like airlines having people ’managing’ their sustainability/environmental efforts - slow progress - still a very long way to go!!
Scarlett & SMN
4moAll last week and into this week endless choppers overhead ferrying the rich, famous and fortunate to the festival.