Sustainability

For the past six years we’ve been working on our ‘Looking After the Woods’ initiative, not only to care for the land we are privileged to call home, but to present ways in which we can all change our lifestyles in order to help slow and potentially reverse climate change in the immediate future.

It’s an unprecedented task, and so often as humans we can resign ourselves to the ‘drop in the ocean’ mentality and fear of failure. Yet there is hope, and even though we’re a humble festival tucked away in a small nook at the heart of the English countryside, we hope we can play our part in the system change that is so sorely needed.

“Large streams from little fountains flow, tall trees from little acorns grow.” – English Proverb

The Noisily Festival Sustainability Review

What we do:

Our Single Use Plastic Policy:

Crew – All crew must bring their own refillable water bottles, cups, plates and cutlery.
Public – No plastic bottles behind the bars, refillable ones are sold onsite and reusable cups from the bars can also be used.
Bars were not allowed to serve anything that came from plastic bottles, resulting in 400kg increase in glass use, which is infinitely recyclable.
Traders all used Vegware and other compostable biodegradable products.
Market stall traders were not allowed to use plastic bags.
The production office used almost no laminating pouches, cataloguing all we had from previous years and reusing them.

Environmentally Unfriendly / Harmful Chemicals:

The festival team used only 100% Paraben and SLS free washing up liquid, kitchen cleaner and personal care products such as shampoo and soap in all areas of site including the showers. Traders were asked to do the same, and were inspected on site before opening the arena.
Compost toilets across site, chemical and water free.

Recycle, Reuse:

All human waste is made into compost for improving soil conditions. This happens at our compost loo’s suppliers facility, off site.
A litter bond was enforced on food traders, encouraging them to leave post event with their pitch spotless.

Reduce Travel Related Carbon:

We partnered with Go Car Share again to encourage festival guests to share their journeys with each other, making new friends, and reducing carbon emissions all in one.
Crew ride sharing.
Encouraged the use of trains and taxi sharing to get to the festival.
Tracked crew mileage on our crew system, with the intention of using this data to compare to future years and reduce / rideshare where possible, setting realistic goals in the process.
Introduced a mandatory £20 car parking fee at the festival gate for the fourth year running, for all cars arriving. Designed to encourage car sharing, and to raise funds to maintain the site and natural environment of Barkestone Woods. We are also working with the woodland trust to offset the whole event on the festival site in the beautiful woodlands.

Waste Management:

This year was the sixth Noisily has worked with Enva, the East Midlands’ leading resource management and recycling company, who have a “zero waste to landfill” commitment which they are working towards with extreme efficiency.

Plans for 2024

Beyond ensuring we strive towards our target to recycle 100% of the waste generated at the event, we realise how important it is to reduce the amount of waste we are having to recycle in the first place, and most importantly change people’s behavioural patterns and the way we live and exist in our day to day lives.

Power

We are designing the most efficient power set up for the festival. This is by using “power farms” which use a series of generators to only use the right amount of power so that we are not wasting the surplus. This makes the event far more fuel-efficient and means that we have less emissions to offset at the end of the festival.

Travel:

How people travel to the festival is one of the largest contributors of carbon that stems from organising events like Noisily.That is why we like to suggest people arrive by public transport or car share as much as possible.

Our car parking remains at £20, and following in the footsteps of some of the greenest events out there, applies to ALL VEHICLES driving to the festival. A big proportion of these funds will go towards carbon offsetting through our looking after the woods initiative.

More details on all the above can be found on our Travel page here.

Stay tuned for more upcoming sustainability news.

The Noisily Team xxx