As music-lovers and festival-heads wake up to day two of their Glastonbury experience so too are they preparing themselves for another day of immersion in the festival of the future. For its 2023, Glastonbury has gone full-tilt into sustainability, and there’s plenty to explore.
For a start, every production area of the festival will be powered by electricity from lower-impact, fossil fuel-free sources or through solar photovoltaic (PV) and battery hybrid systems. A temporary wind turbine will also supply energy to selected market stalls.
Furthermore, all generators will operate using sustainable and renewable palm oil-free HVO fuel, derived from waste cooking oil.
This news all follows the recent announcements from the festival’s Arcadia stage, confirming its shift to recycled energy for the first time this year.
“We’re pleased to report that all of Glastonbury 2023’s power needs will be met by renewable energy and renewable fuels, eliminating the need to rely on fossil fuels for power across the festival,” the festival announced earlier this month via social media.
But this isn’t all. Glastonbury organisers have since released an info sheet on the event’s green initiatives that includes a ban on single-use plastic drink bottles and disposable vapes, the sale of all crisps in compostable packaging, a sustainable travel initiative that has helped over 100,000 ticket holders travel to the Festival by bike or public transport, and its own on-site recycling plant – the largest events-run facility in which waste is hand-separated for single stream recycling, avoiding the need to send waste to landfill.
Nature reserves and protected areas spanning Worthy Farm and the Festival site, meanwhile, offer rich biodiversity, crockery and plates are all reusable or compostable, and a special 10th anniversary edition of Silver Hayes, a new Pavilion will showcase and explore the potential of the biomaterial mycelium in the creative industries.
Yes, the first-ever Hayes Pavilion project will harness the interconnected power of mushroom roots – the extraordinary underground network known as mycelium.
The project aims to demonstrate the opportunity to move away from environmentally impacting materials to a more sustainable future of fungi. When mycelium is fed with agricultural waste, it forms a construction material – such as polystyrene, foam, and plastics – but is entirely organic and compostable.
In the six weeks that have led to the opening of the 2023 Festival, a creative collective that includes individuals from Central St Martins, the Royal College of Art, and Bath Spa University, have been testing, manipulating, and challenging what is possible with mycelium as a practical material.
The finding are now currently being showcased in the Pavilion. The creative learnings from the project – as well as carbon data collection – will be published in a report after Glastonbury. The aim is to give the wider industry the findings and recommendations on best practice for future creatives anting to interact with the biomaterial.
The Hayes Pavilion will be a returning platform for artistic research and development at Glastonbury each year, looking at how festivals can be at the forefront of new ideas, materials, and products which will potentially help society move towards a more sustainable future.
Emily Eavis, co-organiser of Glastonbury Festival, said: “We’re so excited to be bringing this groundbreaking installation to this year’s Festival, and I hope visitors will flock to Silver Hayes to check out the incredible, sustainable potential of mycelium at the Pavilion.”
Phil Gabby, Arts Council England, South West Director, added: “At the Arts Council, we value environmental responsibility as a core investment principle. That’s why we are excited to contribute to the innovative new chapter at Glastonbury’s Silver Hayes area this year.
“Thanks to the support of the National Lottery, we’re proud to be playing our part in sustainable design in the live events and music industry, while also creating opportunities for artists to showcase their work and enabling young people to learn about potential careers in the industry.”
