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Making Godiva Festival green

Tackling the causes and consequences of climate change is a key priority for Coventry City Council and we need to look at how we can improve our green credentials in everything we do. Major city events like the Godiva Festival are a great opportunity to look at how we can do things in a more climate-friendly way.

This year, we’re excited to align our efforts with the Council’s ambitious Climate Change Strategy, ensuring that our festival not only provides an unforgettable experience but also sets a new standard for environmental responsibility.  

Join us in our mission to make Godiva Festival greener and more sustainable, paving the way for a brighter, cleaner future for all. 

Our aims

The Council’s new Climate Change Strategy sets out an ambitious vision with five key aims as to how it will be achieved: 

  • Low emission development – cleaner air, cheaper bills and more jobs and skills for Coventry 

  • Circular economy – recycling and reusing our resources, meaning less things in landfill 

  • Nature-based development – protecting our city’s wildlife, plants and trees 

  • Climate change adaptation and resilience – coping with the consequences of climate change such as flooding, drought and not being able to grow crops and produce 

  • Fair green future - addressing the effects of climate change on vulnerable/low-income families and ensuring a just transition.

The Council has a role as a leader and enabler in the city to help deliver the change needed to tackle the causes and consequences of climate change. Sustainability needs to be embedded in more Council work with communities, businesses and organisations to encourage everyone to play their part.    

We support the Council and their need to re-think their approach to organising events to minimise the impact on the environment.  

Godiva Festival is the largest event the Council organises annually, with audiences of over 70,000 over the weekend in 2023. We want to ensure that the festival continues to be a fantastic experience but is delivered in a much greener and more sustainable way and creates a blueprint for the Council’s approach to running other events across the city in the future.  

How you can help 

There are loads of things that all festival go-ers can do to make Godiva Festival greener.  

These are our top five suggestions:   

Consider how you get to us - leave your car at home and travel to the festival on foot, bike or by public transport. The festival is a 10-minute walk from Coventry Railway Station, there are regular buses that travel past the festival site and there is plenty of cycle parking at the festival. Read more about this on our travel page [https://www.godivafestival.com/travel].

Bring your water bottle - we have five drinking water re-fill stations that are free for the public to use and stay hydrated 

 

Eat, drink, recycle - remember that all cups and containers for food and beverages from vendors at Godiva Festival are either completely recyclable or compostable so look out for the right bins

Find your recycling stations – there are recycling stations located all around the War Memorial Park, please try and use the correct bins for waste materials and help our efforts to recycle as much as possible 

Learn more from the Council’s Climate Change team – the team will be onsite at Godiva Festival on Saturday and Sunday to find out more about what you can do at home, work and in your community to support our city in taking positive action on climate change. 

Awards 

The sustainability journey started last year as part of ‘A Greener Festival’ accreditation scheme. 

Working together, Godiva Festival was thrilled to get a certification for our sustainability efforts. 

The festival was also the only UK event nominated for A Greener Festival’s annual awards in Greener Transport category.

 Award Greener Festival finalist logo 2024

   

The Festival Policy sets out the Council’s key aims to become a Greener Festival and details the priority areas where actions must be taken to achieve this.   

 

 

Remember to reduce, reuse and recycle and join us in making Godiva Festival a beacon of sustainability.  

By choosing greener travel options and making simple, cost-effective changes like using refillable water bottles and recycling your waste on site, you’re already supporting us and contributing to a greener, healthier Coventry.  

See you in the War Memorial Park! 

 

Godiva Festival Sustainability Plan

Background and vision

Tackling the causes and consequences is one of the Council’s key priorities. We have produced a Climate Change Strategy which sets out an ambitious vision for how we achieve this.

There are 5 key themes in the strategy:

  • Low emission development – cleaner air and more jobs and money for Coventry
  • Circular economy – recycling and reusing our resources (less things in landfill)
  • Nature-based development – protecting our city’s wildlife, plants and trees.
  • Climate change adaptation and resilience– coping with the consequences of climate change (things like flooding, drought and not being able to grow food)
  • Equitable development - addressing the effects of climate change on vulnerable/low-income families (paying for food and keeping warm)

The Council has a role has a leader and enabler in the city to help deliver the change needed to tackle the causes and consequences of climate change. We need to embed sustainability into everything we do as a Council and work with our communities, businesses and organisations to encourage everyone to play their part.

We need to look at our approach to organising events to minimise impact on the environment. The annual Godiva Festival is the largest event the Council organises annually, attracting over 70,000 people every year over the event weekend. We want to ensure that the festival continues to be a fantastic experience but is delivered in a greener and more sustainable way and creates a blueprint for the Council’s approach to running other events across the city in the future. We started this journey last year as part of ‘A Greener Festival’ accreditation scheme and were thrilled to get a bronze award for our sustainability efforts. Now we need to go further!

The Festival Plan sets out the Council’s key aims to become a Greener Festival and details the priority areas where actions must be taken to achieve this. 

Top things you can do to support a greener Godiva Festival:

  • Consider leaving your car at home and travel to the festival on foot, bike or by public transport. We are 10 minute walk from Coventry Railway Station and there is plenty of cycle parking at the festival.
  • Bring your own empty water bottle that you can keep topped up at our refill stations.
  • Recycle waste – there are recycling stations located all around the War Memorial Park, please try and use the correct bins for waste materials and help our efforts to recycle as much as possible.
  • Visit our Climate Change team to find out more about what you can do at home, work and in your community to support our city taking positive action on climate change and make a pledge for what you can do differently.

Godiva Festival’s key aims:

  1. To comply with all applicable environmental legislation, regulations, and codes of practice.
  2. To integrate sustainability considerations into all our festival decisions.
  3. To ensure that all staff, volunteers and technical crews are fully aware of our sustainability policy and are committed to implementing and improving it.
  4. To minimise the impact on the environment of all our activities.
  5. To prioritise low carbon movement of the audience, production, artists/exhibitors/talent.
  6. To encourage Festival stakeholders, suppliers, staff, contractors to also improve their sustainability.
  7. To encourage the public audience to take personal responsibility for helping to create a more sustainable festival.
  8. Aim for our event to leave a positive legacy wherever it goes, and to continually learn from any good processes and procedures we encounter and use this knowledge to deliver more sustainable events across the city in the future and to showcase the event as a sustainable festival.
  9. To create measurable data by which we can monitor and manage the event's sustainability.

Travel and transport

  • For the Festival planning stage, we aim to limit physically travelling to meetings, etc, where virtual alternatives are available and appropriate, and ensure the efficient timing of meetings to avoid multiple trips.
  • The event is held in central Coventry which in itself provides a high-quality festival for residents without the need for long journeys to other festival locations across the country.  Coventry is served by a railway station and we advertise our event with train operators and promote the ease of travelling to us by train, (onward travel by bus or taxi is not generally required for our Festival as it within walking distance for those able to , although buses will be provided for those who require public transport).
  • We intend to include a question about travel in our survey so we can plan an awareness campaign to reduce the number of non-sustainable journeys from all stakeholders, i.e. festival attendees, volunteers, sellers and artists.
  • We will plan for reducing carbon emissions from transport and travel. 
  • We will communicate the plan for attendees and staff. 
  • The location of the Festival naturally encourages sustainable travel being within walking distance of the city centre.
  • The audience history indicates walking as the majority of travel for the audience.
  • The festival is not a camping festival thus reducing the need for vehicle access.
  • We will survey the audience.
  • We will reduce the transport of equipment through engaging local companies and also through innovative product selection – flat pack can be moved en-masse with less trucks.

Suppliers

  • Ensure that the selection and recommendation of venues and suppliers includes consideration of their sustainability practices.
  • Notwithstanding Local Authority procurement rules we select local suppliers to reduce delivery distances.
  • Ensure procurement processes specify sustainability objectives/targets/requirements.

Consumables and procurement

  • We have moved to e-tickets for our Festival.
  • We don’t print programmes but use large vinyl information panels on-site.
  • Information packs, directories, etc, for staff and crew are no longer printed but sent as emails or shared documents.
  • We look to re-use signages, scrims, etc.
  • We are exploring ethical sourcing for merchandise. Our merchandise partner uses ethically sourced garments.

Food and beverage

  • Catering – we insist on the use of recyclable or multiple-use utensils and cutlery, our suppliers must have a sustainable food sourcing and waste policy and we are creating our own sustainable food and beverage policy by 2024.
  • We will offer a wide range of vegetarian and vegan food options to reduce the environmental impact of meat consumption.
  • The bars stock canned drinks and we collect and recycle the cans.

Waste

  • We have a defined re-using or recycling policy for materials used at the event – highly visible, well-marked, and grouped bins are situated at the site.  We will, through CCC Cleansing set up clearly marked recycling stations throughout the festival grounds.  These Recycling stations will be staffed with CCC staff to encourage correct recycling.
  • We will specify that vendors use biodegradable or compostable materials.
  • We will have on-site recycling sorting plant from CCC Cleansing.
  • We will provide composting bins for food waste.
  • We will limit the use of plastic bottles and encourage the use of reusable water bottles. - Comms will promote public messaging around bringing empty water bottles for the public to refill on-site with various water stations.   Bars will use cans for larger as cans are more recyclable than PET bottles. We will run a cup deposit scheme for other drinks.
  • We will deploy volunteers to help signpost and educate festival attendees to appropriate recycling facilities and encourage the separation of waste to avoid contamination of recyclables.
  • The Climate Change team will be promoting the city’s Climate Change Strategy to festival goers and helping to encourage behaviour change through education regarding recycling and energy efficiency measures, as well as signposting to grant funding opportunities for retrofit etc.
  • Post-event waste collection is formally organised and reviewed.
  • Waste – we will track the amount of waste we create that cannot go to recycling in 2024.
  • We will analyse the largest waste types and attempt to reduce them in subsequent years.

Energy

  • Energy – we use a power supplier who is reviewing our use of generators as there is no energy provided by the Grid. We are moving towards using hybrid generators in the short-term and reviewing possibilities for solar generation on-site.
  • We will plan to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. 
  • We will create a strategy for using renewable energy sources and efficient technologies. 
  • We use energy-efficient floodlighting throughout the festival grounds. We also use LED lighting for stage lighting.
  • We will use appropriately sized power sources and limit over-provision.
  • We will plan a hybrid temporary power solution using battery generators as well as HVO generators as well as diesel with the aim of limiting the latter dependence on the supply chain.  We reduced our diesel consumption in 2022/3 by 50% and will continue to lower our consumption.
  • We will encourage attendees to carpool or use public transportation to reduce carbon emissions.

Measurement and carbon

In addition to our sustainability commitments, we plan to measure the impact of our Festival in the following ways from 2023 onwards:

  • Carbon: we will use our survey to record how people travel to and around the Festival in 2023 and use the data try to reduce the number of non-sustainable journeys and increase arrival by public transport in 2024 through education and incentives.
  • Miles travelled, continue to analyse and reduce any expensed travel miles for staff/creatives/tech crew and reduce for future events.
  • We will track the food and utensil waste of our food stalls.
  • We aim in future to measure our carbon footprint in-house; we will need to collect data from our suppliers and event contractors and stakeholders to create a baseline set of metrics to measure ourselves against and against other similar activity.
  • We will seek A Greener Festival accreditation.
  • We will set measurable goals for sustainability practices and track progress throughout the festival.
  • We will report on the success of sustainability initiatives to stakeholders and attendees.
  • We will seek to continuously improve sustainability practices for future festivals.

Training

  • We have set up a working group and created a sustainability plan to cover the key areas at the Festival.
  • Some key event staff have already attended A Greener Festival Training and we are looking to add additional staff on to that training in subsequent years.
  • We have nominated a Sustainability events lead to ensure we are meeting regulations and we have incorporated advice and support from other sustainability staff within the organisation.
  • We share our policy with suppliers and ask to review their policies, we aim to add a sustainability clause to contracts as appropriate.
  • We will add it to our publicly available information on the website.
  • We will review the policy annually and include measurements attained in our post-event reports.

Biodiversity and ecosystems

  • We plan to protect and enhance biodiversity and natural resources. 
  • We will create a plan for minimising impact on wildlife and ecosystems. 
  • We will communicate the plan to attendees and staff. 
  • We will commission a biodiversity survey of the festival site pre-and post the Festival to assess impact and consider future mitigation.
  • We will assess the site drainage and ensure that no waste water enters the watercourses on site.
  • We have commissioned an initial biodiversity assessment which has been carried out and includes some recommendations which now need reviewing and actioning.

Procurement

  • We will seek to procure event equipment, branding, etc. that can be re-used from one Festival to another, I.e. stage scrims.
  • Our merchandise partner supplies ethically produced garments.

Social value, community engagement and legacy

  • We will plan to engage with the local community and promote sustainability. 
  • We will create a strategy for creating a positive legacy for the event. 
  • We will promote sustainability and environmental initiatives to the audience.

Water conservation and management

  • Water and sewage – we are reviewing this as part of the 2023/2024 accreditation assessment.
  • We will plan for reducing water consumption and managing water resources. 
  • We will encourage attendees to bring their own reusable water bottles.
  • We will set up water refill stations throughout the festival grounds.
  • We will use low-flow toilets and sinks to conserve water.

Governance (policies as required by AGF accreditation)

  • Sustainability plan
  • Waste plan
  • Sustainable food & beverage policy
  • Procurement policy
  • Energy plan
  • E&D policy

 

 

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