From Footprint to Action

How music festivals can engage in education for sustainable development and empower sustainable consumption.

By Markus Allbauer, first published on 12 November 2019

When you think of music festivals, you might not automatically think of these events as learning opportunities for sustainable development. On the contrary, pictures of colorful party scenes, creative drinking games or vandalized campsites might come to mind. Reminding people of the consequences of their actions when they are trying hard to have a good time is probably one of the worst ideas to put into practice during a festival. So we did just that.

Sustainability at music festivals: Messages, values and action
2019 Sziget Festival in Budapest put some visible efforts into providing a more sustainable festival experience for its visitors. Big campaigns invited to say no to straws, turn to reusable cups or engage in one of the festival’s recycling programs. The ‘Island of freedom’ (as is the official slogan of Sziget Festival) made sure that half a million visitors of the 7-day-festival wouldn’t miss the message. But how do these kinds of messages translate into (sustainable) action? Research on the so-called ‘values-action-gap’ indicates that our behavior is far from being consistent with our attitudes. Unfortunately, this seems to be particularly true for environmentally conscious behavior. The good news is that there are strategies to close the gap step by step, even — or especially — at a festival.

For the second year in a row, Climate KIC Alumni Association, headed by Dorka Bauer, was invited to contribute with hands-on-workshops on various topics of sustainable development. In 2018 I followed the call and introduced experiments and nudges for sustainable consumption at the festival. One of last year’s nudges resulted in the so-called ‘Green Shower Initiative’, reminding visitors of the consequences of their water consumption while taking a shower. Nudging visitors into more sustainable behavior is a powerful way to achieve behavioral change in the short term. But what do people take away once the festival is over? And how do single actions, such as taking a shower, relate to the overall impact, a festival visit leaves on our planet? In order to address these questions, this year’s approach was more holistic in its purpose to raise awareness and shed some light onto the emissions associate with traveling, camping, eating and drinking, recycling and other topics related music festivals. Introducing: the Festival Footprint Calculator.

The Festival Footprint Calculator: How learning about sustainable development starts with a footprint
The Festival Footprint Calculator is a self-assessment tool for the environmental impact of personal consumption behavior. Based on the concept of carbon footprints — an adaption of the ecological footprint, Wackernagel and colleagues introduced over 20 years ago — the calculator converts answers to questions related to individual festival behavior into CO2-equivalents, a proxy for environmental impact. One example: Visitors were asked what city they started their festival journey from and which mode of transport they used. In the background, the calculator matched the city with the distance to Sziget festival and multiplied this distance with the carbon-equivalent emission factor of the chosen transport mode. If taking the car to the festival was the preferred means of transport, the next question was on the number of passengers sharing the ride, etc. Essentially, the calculator “translates” these practices into CO2-equivalent emissions.

Clearly, CO2-equivalents are only one way to measure environmental impact and carbon calculators can provide only an approximation of actual emissions. However, the Festival Footprint Calculator is also a powerful tool to initialize learning processes from our own behavior. For most festival visitors, it took less than five minutes to complete all the questions from the calculator and learn about their footprint. One of the cool features of the calculator is that besides getting immediate feedback on the size and the composition of their festival footprint, participants could also compare themselves to other visitors and check how much of their annual carbon budget was used up during the festival visit already. Maximal transparency with minimal effort. Over 1.200 visitors participated, taking home not only an incredible festival experience, but also learning about their very personal environmental impact.

Windows of opportunity: Why festivals offer valuable learning opportunities
When it comes to learning in the context of sustainable development, institutionalized education throughout Europe is key to change. However, intervening in everyday life situations may exploit learning opportunities that are more consistent with actual behavior. Arguably, this is especially true for situations that are outside our daily routines. As we use our adaptive capabilities to comply with novel environments, the design of these environments may be crucial for our environmental impact. Music festivals are a good example of these environments: They take place only once a year, have their own rules and social norms, are subject to change from year to year and attract new people from different backgrounds. In sustainability transitions, the term ‘windows of opportunity’ expresses conditions that are favorable to change. As behavioral change is central to these transitory processes, we are well advised to pay attention to those windows of opportunity. Within the design of music festivals and similar events lies the potential to substantially decrease carbon footprints and address new audiences for climate action. But what is more important, these events may empower the formation of sustainable mindsets and thus contribute to the long-term impact of current and future generations.

The Festival Footprint Calculator was accompanied by a research project at the Institute of Economic Education at the University of Oldenburg in Germany. Special thanks go to Sziget Festival for providing the space for educational innovations in the field of sustainable development, the inspiring team of Climate KIC Alumni Association for bringing topics of sustainable development into the minds and hearts of the festival visitors and to Akos, Dorka, Santeri, Dominik, Csilla, Emese, Eszter, Fanni, Maja, Mirtill, Szilvia and Zak for their dedicated work during the festival.

Do you want to learn more about the Festival Footprint Calculator and other practical educational approaches towards sustainable consumption? Contact markus.allbauer@uni-oldenburg.de