Greenprint

Over the last 20 years, Hay Festival has grown from 1000 visitors to 150,000 in 2007. However with that growth we have become increasingly aware of the impact that we, and our audience, have on our environment. We started in 2006 making major changes, however Greenprint represents a step-change, not only for ourselves but through the debates and discussions during the Festival, also we hope for our visitors.

What is Greenprint?

Beginning in 2007 with four key objectives:

1. Increase our sustainability: environmentally, financially and within communities and aiming to be carbon minimal.
2. Develop the knowledge we gain through research and experience, share it with others working in the same area and produce a Sustainability toolkit for any festival to use.
3. Host conferences and debates around how politics, industry and the general public all have a hand in improving sustainability.
4. Provide inspiration and information for our festival visitors about living a lower carbon lifestyle through lectures, debates, galleries, displays and examples.

Examples of what have we achieved so far?

1. Reduced use of resources including printed materials (down by 35%), diesel (down by 20%) and electricity (down by 10%)
2. Recycled 50% of the waste produced on site including 4.5 tonnes of cardboard.
3. Developed a start-up network of festivals interested in sharing best practice.
4. Hosted major environmental speakers including; Al Gore, Zac Goldsmith, David Miliband, David Attenborough, George Monbiot, Jeremy Leggett, Mark Lynas etc.
5. Built a Lower Carbon Lifestyle Home to provide information and inspire change.
6. Gave away 1450 free tickets to University and college students to encourage involvement by young people.

Getting Involved

We are actively looking for organisations, public bodies and individuals who can help us achieve our objectives. If you would like to find out more, please contact andy@hayfestival.com

Partners

We are extremely grateful to the following partners, who have made Greenprint a reality:

    
    

 

Some carbon production is naturally unavoidable but if every visitor donates £2 to our designated off-set charity Solaraid, we will not only go along way towards balancing our emissions but at the same time help the sustainable development of a number of poor, communities.