T in the Park Wins Green'n'Clean Award

This international award is given to events which conform to a range of environmental criteria which is measured across several fields including sustainable management, transportation, waste management, energy efficiency, power and catering.

This prestigious accolade recognises festivals that actively work to protect the environment and guarantees that measures to save energy and protect the world’s natural resources are effectively implemented and openly communicated.

Festival organisers Big Day Out Ltd and founding partners Tennent’s Lager have long demonstrated a commitment to reducing T in the Park’s impact on the environment. The event became the UK’s first CarbonNeutral festival in 2006 and remains the largest CarbonNeutral festival in the world today.

Recognising that reduction is as important as offsetting, T in the Park implements a number of initiatives designed to diminish its overall Carbon footprint and impact on the environment as well as counteracting the emissions generated by staging the event.
 
Measures include the promotion of public transport and a close link with the Perth and Kinross lift-share programme. Onsite, the introduction of the ‘Reduce, Redeem, Recycle’ initiative saw T-goers pay a returnable 10p deposit on all beverages which was returned to them at specially designated points across site. A 75% return rate was achieved in 2007 leaving the site more fan-friendly and allowing the event to recycle the collected cups.

T in the Park also offers a battery recycling tent and encourages campers to respect the Loch Leven Conservation Area, by only bringing phosphate-free soap to Balado to protect this Site of Special Scientific Interest.

Festival Director Geoff Ellis, said “We are delighted to have won this prestigious award which recognises that T in the Park is a festival that is genuinely concerned about the environment.

“Green has become the new black in some respects but we have made a real effort to ensure that the changes we have introduced will really reduce the impact we have on the environment ensuring that future generations of music fans will be able to enjoy T in the Park.”

“We aren’t perfect and we have a long way to go which is indicative of society as a whole but we will continue to review our practices and we thank the T in the Park fans for working with us on this and urge them to continue to take pride in the beautiful site we have at Balado.”

George Kyle of founding partners Tennent’s Lager continued:

“All of us here at Tennent’s Lager are delighted with today’s news. It is justification of the hard work and planning of a team dedicated to making T as green a festival as possible.”

The Green’n’Clean Award was developed by Yourope – the European Festival Association.

See www.yourope.org for further information.