As a Festival, Greenbelt is moving towards minimising its enviromental impact and ensuring its practices are as sustainable as they can be. It's a tall order for a four-day festival, but it's something we're committed to working towards. But we recognise that the way we can have maximum impact is to inspire, educate and equip Greenbelters at the Festival to go back home after the event and change the default settings in the way they live.

Here's some practical stuff we're already doing

Transport

• Set up an online liftshare group on the website (click here for details)
  
• Talking to local public transport companies about better, greener links to the Racecourse and routes which take in the Halls of Residence, the Town Centre and Train Station

Environmental levy

• In 2008 we are introducing an opt-in levy at the ticket booking stage so that people can choose to make a donation which we will ring-fence and then give to a nominated project in the developing world struggling with the effects of climate change. The total carbon emissions from people traveling by car to the Festival has been estimated at nearly 300 tonnes. But we are not convinced enough by any off-the-shelf offsetting scheme to just offer that as a mechanism. So we are introducing our own levy this year. Click here for more on this.

Waste

• The polybag outers that the Greenbelt literature is sent in is oxybiodegradable
  
• A massive recycling operation is in place at the Festival, provided by Network Recycling (see www.networkrecycling.co.uk)
  
• Site vibing is carried out using recycled materials from scrap-store
  
• As of 2008 the tumblers used in our onsite organic bar will be 100% biodegradable and compostable
  
• Many caterers wash up cups and plates, cutting down on waste from disposables and ...

Composting .. as of 2007

• As well as recycling glass, plastic and cans onsite, in 2007 we also provided onsite composting. This was available to all the caterers in the main Festival Village areas and also on the campsite, too. Greenbelters were issued with a cornstarch bag or two on arrival and each recycling pen carried appropriate instructions.

Printing

• The Festival Guide and all its year-round publicity is now printed by Calverts, a Coop printing house in London, specialising in working with 100% recycled paper stocks and committed to sustainable practices (click here for more)

Caterers and traders

• The use of fair-trade products has been encouraged across the festival over the last few years and in 2004 all caterers bar one used fair-trade products
  
• Caterers are encouraged to provide healthy, organic where possible, food from local sources, with fair-trade products
  
• All Greenbelt branded garments are made with organic, fairly traded cotton

Sound pollution

• Sound monitoring takes place in the surrounding areas throughout the Festival