Festivals are temporary communities, but the impacts they can have can be much longer lasting. The Earth and local communities have long been part of folk songs – intrinsically linked to the folk community.
We are on our journey to a more sustainable festival, and 2022 was our first year for measuring and setting our future ambitions. This is why, we have published our sustainability manifesto outlining some key areas of focus.
Environmental footprint
We have been working on minimising our environmental footprint for a number of years, including banning some key single-use plastics on-site and water refill points on site. However, we have bigger ambitions.
We are focusing on measuring our footprint to really understand where we are and where we can work to reduce our impacts even further.
Climate and carbon
We are living in a climate emergency. We are committed to doing our part to reduce our impact where we can. However, we recognise that we have challenges in this area. As a festival in a rural location with almost no public transport options, we know that most of our visitors come by car. We also have to rely on generators for our site.
In order to play our part, we will be measuring our direct energy footprint to understand where our biggest impacts lie and where we can control and reduce this. We will be setting targets for improvement.
Plastic
We have seen this as a priority area for a number of years. We saw that we were using plastic in places we could swap it for lower-impact items, or remove it altogether. We have been working with our food and catering partners to reduce the plastic given to our festival-goers – this has included removing all plastic straws and banning plastic bottled drinks.
We have added additional points to our vendor requirements and will be monitoring our plastic waste to understand where we can continue to reduce this even more.
We switched our cups on-site to compostable a number of years ago; however, we are looking into this and working out if this is the right solution for us, given the infrastructure available to us.
Waste
We are proud to say that we were zero waste to landfill in 2022!
We have been working with a new waste handler who sorts all of our rubbish off-site, which means that all of our waste generated on-site can go in one bin, apart from glass which is collected separately. None of the waste generated on-site goes to landfill – our waste partner sorts and recycles whatever possible – and the remainder is diverted from landfill to use for energy recovery.
Water
Water is one of the most valuable resources on earth – and for us, the preservation of water and prevention of water pollution is key. This year we are assessing the water that we use and the wastewater generated. Our aim is to understand how we can minimise our impact.
Social impact
We are a not-for-profit organisation, with a core value of our festival is to have a positive impact on our community, both those who visit our site and those who live in the local vicinity.
We are looking at where we can continue to enhance our positive impact on the community.
Charity
We have always been a not-for-profit organisation, and have been donating money to local community groups since we started the Festival in 1991: our stated aims are promoting music and arts and improving the environs of Priddy.
Festival funds have supported all manner of projects and activities in the village over the years, including being a major contributor to the local school and preschool.
To find out more about who we support, please visit the page about who we help.
Volunteers
Our Festival relies on the amazing volunteers who organise and run the events over the Festival weekend. The Priddy Folk Festival committee is made up of volunteers who spend the year planning, and then make sure it runs as smoothly as possible.
We also heavily rely on our volunteer stewards, who are an essential part of the weekend. We are always on the lookout for enthusiastic volunteers to join our friendly team, so if you are interested in becoming a steward, please visit our Stewards page.
We’d be delighted to hear from you for any ideas or thought you have on our sustainability journey! Please contact us at sustainability@priddyfolk.org or via our website contact page.