Byron Music Festival (BMF) has been officially declared a carbon negative event.
Organisers of the inaugural event held at Byron Bay’s iconic beachfront Dening Park in June 2021 announced with environmental consultancy Earthed Consultants this week that carbon offsets in the form of tree planting and other operational adjustments meant the festival was able to reach this ambitious goal in its first year of operation.
“We are stoked to get the festival to this status in the first year,” said BMF Festival Director Nick Sergi.
“There are many challenges to getting a festival to even a carbon neutral status, as there are so many working parts – multiple stakeholders and suppliers who run their business differently, and offsetting can be really expensive, so it was an ambitious goal for us to aim for neutrality in the first year but we really wanted to give it a go and see what we could achieve because being environmentally responsible is important to us.
We’re so grateful that everyone involved in the festival were on board to help us do the best we could; to get to negative is just fantastic”.
BMF had a zero-waste target, zero plastic policy, and the strictest parameters of any other activation held on the same site to ensure minimal impact on the neighbouring dunes.
Partnerships with Byron Rangers and Earthed Consultants helped the festival team deliver these goals.
Founder of Earthed Consultants, Jen Kyna said “We were thrilled to measure, calculate and offset the carbon emissions for the Byron Music Festival; working together on emission reduction and community partnership projects to reduce the festival’s environmental impact.
They truly are transforming the music industry’s impact on the environment”.
Byron Rangers CEO Dean Steele-Bennett said “Byron Rangers were proud to be part of the BMF2021 team and deliver on an amazing community event. [the] festival site and surrounding beaches were left extremely clean. We confidently believe the festival delivered on the environmental promise to the community”.
The BMF team also did a walk on country with Delta Kay (Explore Byron Bay) prior to the festival to learn about and gain respect for the country the festival is operating on.
BMF Operations Manager Monique Hartman said “We are committed to leading the way in eco-friendly event management.
It is possible to put on a cool, fun event, and respect country and do the right thing by the environment at the same time.
It’s an extension of the festival ethos of ‘keeping it Byron’. It makes total sense that if you’re going to have any kind of event in beautiful Byron Bay that you do it consciously. We are really excited to keep growing this aspect of the festival”.
Byron Music Festival has been the only music festival to proceed in the Byron region since December 2019 due to the pandemic.
Held over 3 days and 11 venues showcasing a 100% local line-up, the grass-roots community event featured a youth music showcase and Byron Bay’s first and only music industry conference, with the vision to reinvigorate Byron’s music industry post-COVID and activate the township during low tourist season.
Plans are in place to bring BMF back in 2022 and announcements will be made soon. BMF is seeking partnerships to fund the expanded plans for its environmental policies.
Watch the BMF2021 highlight reel here.
Other partnership and investment opportunities are also now available.
For more information visit www.byronmusicfestival.com.au
Email nick@byronmusicfestival.com.au or phone 02 6685 7333.