
Towards Zero Waste Festivals Report
Responding to common challenges identified by outdoor event organisers’ around waste management and reduction, Resource Futures, a national waste and resources consultancy, was commissioned in 2022 by Vision: 2025 and Julie’s Bicycle. The report highlights the challenges and opportunities for sustainable waste management at UK greenfield festivals and provides solutions-focused recommendations for event organisers.
Julies Bicycle’s Climate Change Specialist Richard Phillips comments:
“This report will be a valuable tool for event managers to reduce waste and environmental impacts. There are some useful quick wins to improve efficiency and clear next steps for collective action to improve industry understanding and move toward more consistent approaches across the industry for everyone’s benefit.”
The report highlighted key areas organisers can focus on to reduce environmental impact:
Separating food waste so that it can be composted.
Eliminating waste and maximising reuse, banning problem materials, encouraging reuse and having deposit return schemes.
Create a Materials Policy to manage waste reduction to increase recycling and reuse.
Waste data capture and reporting and baseline setting.
Strategic placement and emptying of bins.
Audience communications to positively impact behaviour onsite.
The project has been funded by the Dixon Foundation, supported by an industry working group of sustainability experts and industry stakeholders comprising Julie’s Bicycle, Manchester City Council,
Julies Bicycle’s Climate Change Specialist Richard Phillips comments:
“This report will be a valuable tool for event managers to reduce waste and environmental impacts. There are some useful quick wins to improve efficiency and clear next steps for collective action to improve industry understanding and move toward more consistent approaches across the industry for everyone’s benefit.”
The report highlighted key areas organisers can focus on to reduce environmental impact:
Separating food waste so that it can be composted.
Eliminating waste and maximising reuse, banning problem materials, encouraging reuse and having deposit return schemes.
Create a Materials Policy to manage waste reduction to increase recycling and reuse.
Waste data capture and reporting and baseline setting.
Strategic placement and emptying of bins.
Audience communications to positively impact behaviour onsite.
The project has been funded by the Dixon Foundation, supported by an industry working group of sustainability experts and industry stakeholders comprising Julie’s Bicycle, Manchester City Council,

MAIA
Profile
An artist-led social justice organisation using culture and Black thought as catalysts to develop regenerative, community-centred cultural spaces.

Season for Ex-Change: Justice
Video
Thimali Kodikara hosts a panel discussion for Season for Ex-Change on what justice means within, and beyond, and a climate context.

PTown Bay MMXXX
Profile
An interactive game from artist Hwa Young Jung, co-produced with young people at risk of entering and experiencing the criminal justice system. A Season for Change commission.

Future scenarios
Profile
A multi-platform project by Lena Dobrowolska & Teo Ormond-Skeaping documenting climate change vulnerability, and imagining solutions and future scenarios.

Displacement journeys
Profile
A collaborative art project supporting the Platform on Disaster Displacement, cultivating artistic responses to climate and disaster displacement.

Loss and Damage Collaboration
Profile
An interdisciplinary group of practitioners, researchers, activists, and decision makers working to ensure that vulnerable countries have the support they need to address climate change related loss and damage.

Decommissioned - Deli Theatre
Decommissioned is a new play about what it means to live in the shadow of impending disaster – and how it feels when the only place that you call home is under threat. It’s a play about childhood, community and resilience. It’s a love story, and a story of finding hope in a world in slow collapse.

Karachi Urban Lab
Research
An interdisciplinary research and advocacy platform exploring land displacement, climate change and public infrastructure in Pakistan.

Who gives a f* about polar bears?
Video
A film series from Creative Climate Leadership alum Gavin Porter exploring class and the climate crisis in Wales.

Creative Climate Justice Films
Video
JB's film series featuring 14 global voices from nine countries working across arts and culture and climate justice.

Centric Lab
Research
A research lab that uses neuroscience and geospatial data to understand how environmental injustice impacts our health.

This is it
Video
A music video produced by six Glasgow-based emcees, filmed on the site of COP26, a response to the fast growing #letitgrow project started by the team at Oi Musica.

The Callan Energy Store
Profile
A playful, interactive space looking at the possibilities of community owned energy production.

Neighbourhood Doughnut
Profile
An experimental project from Civic Square and DEAL, using 'Doughnut economics' principles to support an equitable transition to more regenerative neighbourhoods.

Climate Heritage Network
Network
The Climate Heritage Network is a global network whose members, including JB, are committed to mobilising arts, culture and heritage to address climate change and support communities in achieving the ambitions of the Paris Agreement.

Barranquilla +20
Profile
A Colombian youth-led NGO focused on climate policy through advocacy, music and culture, mobilisations, and education. They feature in the JB Creative Climate Film series.

Wang Chau Village: (Non) Indigenous wisdom amidst eviction
Profile
An online paper and zine from artist Michael Leung detailing land injustice and dispossession in the Hong Kong village of Wang Chau.

The Colour Green in conversation: Farhana Yamin & Gaika
Video
The Colour Green in Conversation, featuring Baroness Lola Young; international climate lawyer, Farhana Yamin; and artist and musician Gaika

Fog Everywhere
Profile
A Camden People’s Theatre production exploring air pollution in London, made by and with local young people

Climate Justice in Creative Practice
Video
Rewatch our introductory webinar exploring issues of climate justice

On Loss and Damage
Video
Watch the Julie's Bicycle webinar exploring the concepts of Loss and Damage

Creative Climate Justice Guide
Research
JB's introductory guide exploring key climate justice ideas, concepts and issues.

The Colour Green Podcast
Audio
A six-part series hosted by Baroness Lola Young, in conversation with artists and activists of colour, exploring the connections between nature, racial justice and climate change.

I Lead Climate
Network
A green democracy grassroots climate campaign, founded by Nigerian eco-feminist Oladuso Adenike focusing on the recharging of Lake Chad, youth climate education, and a green recovery post Covid-19.

Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and Teachings of Plants
Book
Indigenous author Robin Wall Kimmerer explores botany through Native American traditions and it's relationship to Western science.

Black2Nature
Profile
Black2Nature, created by teen birder Mya-Rose Craig seeks to close the access gap for people of colour in the UK with the countryside, providing support and educational resources about nature.

Timespan
Profile
Timespan, a gallery in Helmsdale, Scotland uses digital technology to track the history of the village and landscape surrounding the gallery, connecting those histories to Scotland's role in the transatlantic slave trade and environmental destruction in the Highlands.

Ketemu Projects
Profile
Ketemu Projects is an artist collective based in Indonesia and Singapore, led by Creative Climate Leadership alumn Budi Agung Kuswara. Their 'Kekasih Hati Sang Bumi' project connected young people with traditional local knowledges and expressions of gratitude with nature.

Oilwatch
Network
Oilwatch is a network focused on solidarity across the Global South, seeking to stop the expansion of destructive fossil fuel extraction activities.

Weaving land, life and justice within, through and beyond colonisation
Video
A webinar from the Global Environments Network, including a resource list shared by the speakers

The World at 1C
Research
News and resources from the young communications initiative of the Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice.

The Green Belt Movement
Profile
Founded by Professor Wangari Maathai, The Green Belt Movement empowers communities, particularly women, to conserve the environment and improve livelihoods in Kenya.

Pacific Climate Warriors
Profile
A youth-led direct action group taking on Australia's fossil fuel industry

Hip Hop Caucus
Profile
Hip Hop Caucus tackles environmental injustice by empowering Black communities in the USA to engage in the democratic process

Cecilia Vicuña
Profile
A Chilean poet, artist, filmmaker and activist whose work explores climate change, decolonisation, and the relationship between humans and the environment

Small Island, Big Song
Audio
A music, film, live project recorded in nature by over a hundred musicians across 16 island nations of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, a region in the frontline of cultural and environmental challenges.

Artivism Hour
Profile
An advocacy campaign from Surge Africa bringing together six artists from across Nigeria to explore climate change impacts

Landscape as Evidence: Artist as Witness
Profile
Indian artist led organisation Khoj staged Landscape as Evidence: Artist as Witness, a hearing before a Commission of Inquiry using art to consider how to measure ecological loss, premising art as valid evidence.

Land In Our Names
Profile
LION is a Black-led, grassroots collective committed to reparative justice in Britain by securing land for BPOC (Black people and People of Colour). They use events, video, photography and podcasts to build an ecosystem of BPOC stewards committed to the land.

INTERPRT
Research
INTERPRT investigates environmental crimes using geospatial analysis, design and architectural methodologies. Their work actively supports criminalizing Ecocide as an international crime.

adrienne maree brown
Profile
A writer who explores Pleasure Activism, radical acts of love, science fiction and transformative justice. Adrienne is also a writer-in-residence at the Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute and co-host of the How to Survive the End of the World and Octavia’s Parables podcasts.

Kareem Dayes
Audio
Kareem Dayes is a community organiser, social entrepreneur, musician and founder of the pioneering community housing project, Rural Urban Synthesis Society. Listen to his episode on The Colour Green podcast.

Apocalypse Reading Room
Profile
A library curated by The Colour Green podcast guest Ama Josephine Budge. Part of Season For Change, selected guests are invited to read a section of their "apocalypse survival guide" from their favourite reading rooms, and then share a provocation for the audience. Listen to her episode on The Colour Green podcast.

Squirrel Nation
Profile
Installations and live events in public spaces which create memorable experiences and concepts that consider co-existence as an ethic.

The Institute for Queer Ecology
Network
A platform showcasing queer, feminist, decolonial and multi-species art practice.

Jackson Cooperative
Profile
Jackson Cooperative aim to advance the development of economic democracy in Jackson, Mississippi by building a solidarity economy anchored by a network of cooperatives and other types of worker-owned and democratically self-managed enterprises.

Union of Justice
Profile
A European, independent, people of colour (POC) led organisation dedicated to racial justice and climate justice, founded by former MEP Magid Magid.

The International Rights of Nature Tribunal
Profile
Created by the Global Alliance for the Rights of Nature, it aims to create a forum for people from all around the world to speak on behalf of nature, to protest the destruction of the Earth and to make recommendations about Earth’s protection and restoration.

The Right To Energy Coalition
Network
Uniting trade unions, anti-poverty groups, social housing providers, environmental campaigners, health organisations, NGOs and energy cooperatives to end energy poverty across Europe.

Fridays For Future
Profile
An international campaign started by Greta Thunberg, fighting to create a future for all by overcoming the climate and ecological crisis.

Our Climate Voices
Network
An anthology collecting the stories of those most impacted by climate change, supporting local solutions for collective impact.

Green Voices of Color
Network
Climate justice advocate and writer Mary Annaïse Heglar has compiled Green Voices of Color, a Twitter list of BIPOC in the environmental movement.

Creative Climate Leadership
Network
Find out more about the global network of alumni of JB's Creative Climate Leadership programme.

Climate Reframe
Network
This project highlights some of the people of colour and UK based Indigenous people who are climate experts, campaigners and advocates living and working in the UK.

UK Youth Climate Coalition
Network
UKYCC is an organisation whose goal is to empower and mobilise young people to take positive action on climate justice.

Zero Hour
Network
Zero Hour is a youth-led movement creating entry points, training, and resources for young activists wanting to take action on climate change.

The International Indigenous People's Forum on Climate Change
Network
Established in 2008 as the caucus for Indigenous people's participation at COP talks.

The Child Movement
Network
A global movement for climate justice, child rights & providing education to children who are victims of armed conflict, founded by young Indian campaigner Licypriya Kangujam.

Wretched of The Earth
Network
A UK based grassroots collective for Indigenous, Black, brown & diaspora groups/individuals, demanding climate justice, and in solidarity with UK & Global South communities

The Gastivists Network
Network
A global collective of activists fighting against gas extraction

The Re-Earth Initiative
Network
A global, youth-led digital campaign, gathering climate pledges from people around the world.

La Via Campesina
Network
A global movement of peasants, small and medium size farmers, landless people, rural women and youth, Indigenous people, migrants and agricultural workers working to defend food sovereignty, social justice and nature.

Ama Josephine Budge
Audio
In this episode of The Colour Green, we meet Ama Josephine Budge, a Speculative Writer, Artist, Curator and Pleasure Activist.

Judy Ling Wong
Audio
In this episode of The Colour Green, we meet Judy Ling Wong OBE CBE, painter, poet and environmentalist who is best known as the Founder and Honorary President of Black Environment Network (BEN).

Zena Edwards
Audio
In this The Colour Green episode we meet multidisciplinary performer, poet and writer Zena Edwards, who has been involved in performance for over 20 years – as a writer/poet performer, educator and creative project developer.

Global Tapestry of Alternatives
Network
GTA is an initiative seeking to create solidarity networks and strategic alliances amongst communities creating alternative ways of being on local, regional and global levels.

Sustained Ability
Profile
A network of disability climate activists whose goal is for disabled people to be heard in climate negotiations and in social climate movements.

Refuge: Art Meets Emergency
Profile
Since 2016 Refuge has brought together people who might not normally collaborate in a crisis – local residents, artists, scientists, Elders and experts from the world of emergency services to explore new ways of shaping responses to climate impacts.

Landworkers' Alliance
Network
The Landworkers’ Alliance is a union of farmers, growers, foresters and land-based workers whose mission is to improve the livelihoods of their members and create a better food and land-use system for everyone.

Women Hold Up The Sky
Video
Through the eyes of women impacted by extraction projects in South Africa, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, Women Hold Up the Sky explores stories of resistance and communities in active struggle to regain control of their land, their rights and their bodies.

Creative Climate Chats
Video
A series of conversations with leading thinkers in culture and climate for discussions covering the just transition, new economics for a regenerative economy, museums, health and climate, and justice.

COP26 Coalition
Network
The COP26 Coalition is a UK-based civil society coalition of groups and individuals organising towards mobilising around climate justice during COP26.

Creative Climate Chats with Araceli Camargo
Audio
We spoke to Araceli about her research, how public health policy can drive climate action, and how the arts and cultural sector can support public and planetary wellbeing.

Can I Live?
Profile
Why don't we talk about it? Fehinti Balogun asks this urgent question and offers an invitation in Can I Live?, a vital new digital performance about the climate catastrophe, sharing his personal journey into the biggest challenge of our times.

The Colour Green Lab
The Colour Green Lab, is our unique training programme for people of colour (POC) working in the arts to learn more about the climate crisis.

Creative Climate Chats with Sadie Young
Audio
We spoke to Sadie Young, Director of Timespan, a cultural organisation in Helmsdale, in the Scottish Highlands about how museums and galleries can uncover and contextualise local histories and how they can connect to wider movements to help enact radical social change.

Creative Climate Chats with Zamzam Ibrahim
Audio
Zamzam is the co-Founder and President of Students Organising for Sustainability. We speak to Zamzam about organised student responses to climate justice and how we might come out of this situation with climate and environmental campaigning at the fore.

Creative Climate Chats with Ron Whyte
Audio
Ron Whyte is a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania based environmental activist, advocate and consultant. We spoke to Ron about how he draws connections between big global climate issues, and localised environmental injustices.

Creative Climate Chats with Charise Johnson
Audio
Charise Johnson is a science policy researcher and environmental justice advocate. We speak to Charise about her work connecting environmental policy-making, climate science and social justice across the UK and USA.

Immersion
Profile
Selina Thompson and an intergenerational group of women of colour from Tower Hamlets explore democratic participation and the effects of climate change locally.

CeCe's Speakeasy
Profile
CeCe's Speakeasy is an immersive music and poetry experience exploring how climate injustice manifests through coffee and chocolate production.

The Space Between
Profile
A series of interactive and participatory commissions imagining climate, community, and collaboration in Leeds.

Climate Exploration Cookbook - Ling Tan
Profile
Ling Tan works with Chinese Londoners to explore the climate crisis through food culture, cooking and eating habits.

Airs Of The South Circular
Profile
A recorded EP, visual trailer, pamphlet and comic from Love Ssega about the tragic effects of air pollution in the South Circular and London boroughs of Lewisham and Southwark.

Roma: Recycle - Reuse - Reimagine
Profile
Season commission Recycle-Reuse-Reimagine from Rosa Cisneros inspired young people and their families through a series of educational activities and art workshops in South Yorkshire on the importance of both Roma history and recycling.

The Dream(ing) Field Lab
Profile
Season for Change commission, The Dream(ing) Field Lab weaves together acts of rest, ritual, care, creation and celebration offering a space for women and femmes of the African diaspora to re-vision their relationship with land in the context of climate breakdown.
-image credit: Flannery Miller
-image credit: Flannery Miller

Planet-People-Power
Audio
Planet-People-Power explores how the South Asian diaspora experience the climate crisis, via grassroots radio networks and an audio peice from Balraj Singh Samrai and Farah Ahmad Khan.

D6: Culture in Transit
Profile
In 2017, D6: Culture in Transit commissioned artist Henna Asikainen to work with migrant communities in the North East of England on a series called Forage, helping displaced people to connect with the new ecologies and landscapes they are in, beyond the urban centres they are asked to inhabit.

Common Ground
Profile
A round up from our event Common Ground: Culture, Climate and Social Justice.

Diversity and Climate Art: (New) Narratives on the Climate Story
Profile
A series of interviews with artists and climate activists, from Creative Climate Leadership participant Harpreet Kaur.

We Make Tomorrow
Video
A round up and livestreams from our conference We Make Tomorrow, featuring discussions on climate and environmental justice and movement building.

Counterpoints Arts
Profile
Helping to profile, support and produce art work of all types by and about refugees and migrants, advocating for social change. Dijana Rakovic is a project manager on the team and an alumni of Creative Climate Leadership.

Colonial Countryside
Research
A child led writing and history project exploring the African, Caribbean and Indian connections at 11 National Trust properties.

Banking on Climate Chaos Report
Research
A major report from Rainforest Action Network, BankTrack, Indigenous Environmental Network, Oil Change International, Reclaim Finance, Sierra Club, and Urgewald unearthing how the world's largest banks drive fossil fuel extraction.

Climate Just UK
Research
A free online mapping tool which can be used to identify those most vulnerable to climate change and fuel poverty, aiding decision making for public service providers.

The Ella Roberta Family Foundation
Profile
A foundation raising awareness of the dangers of air pollution and campaigning for better air quality in cities. In memory of Ella Kissi-Debrah, a child who died from asthma exacerbated by pollution in London.

The London Mining Network
Network
The London Mining Network is a coalition of organisations researching the impact of mining and monitoring abuses of human rights, Indigenous rights and workers’ rights in mining-affected communities.

Drill Minister - Ecocide
Profile
An activist, wordsmith and artist, Drill Minister speaks out about environmental issues and realities of London life. His Season for Change commission Eco-Cide explores the British public's perception of the climate crisis.

May Project Gardens
Profile
May Project Gardens is a grassroots, social change organisation which uses nature, food and the creative arts to empower marginalised groups to address poverty, disempowerment, access to resources and influence.

Behind The Logos
Research
Behind The Logos is a platform from Culture Unstained, bringing together resources from around the world to make the case against oil sponsorship of cultural institutions.

Shado Magazine
Network
A multimedia platform capturing the inspiring ways and creative approaches in which we can See Hear Act and Do, to cultivate a culture led system change towards social justice. Their third print issue was dedicated to climate justice.

Worm: Art + Ecology
Profile
Worm: Art + Ecology is a growing online global community and curatorial project by Angela YT Chan, communicating intersectional climate change issues through creative practices.

Season for Change
Profile
Check out the nation wide commissions from Season for Change, with a particular focus on participatory works and underserved communities

The Principles of Environmental Justice
Profile
The Principles of Environmental Justice were developed by delegates to the First National People of Color Environmental Leadership Summit held in Washington DC, in 1991. They are a defining set of guidelines for the environmental justice movement.

Rise: From One Island to Another
Video
Poets Kathy Kathy Jetñil-Kijiner and Aka Niviâna collaborated on poem Rise: From One Island to Another, highlighting the disastrous effects of climate change on their homes in Greenland and the Marshall Islands.

Hot Take
Audio
Hot Take is a podcast taking an intersectional, critical, but constructive look at climate coverage. Hosted by climate writer Mary Heglar and climate journalist Amy Westervelt.

No Environmentalism in a Silo: What it Means to Talk About Race in our Climate Crisis
Profile
Yingbi Lee, one of the producers of The Colour Green podcast shares her reflections on why talking about race is crucial when considering social and climate justice.

Arts Practice as Climate Justice
Video
Watch a recording of JB's Farah Ahmed on 'Arts practice as climate justice', part of Season for Ex-Change

Tackling climate change and building an inclusive movement
Video
Revisit Zena Edwards' keynote talk for Season for Ex-Change, 'Tackling climate change and building an inclusive movement'

Intersectional Environmentalist
Profile
A platform for resources and information to support an intersectional approach to environmentalism.

Climate in Colour
Network
Resources, articles and videos exploring the connection between climate science and social justice

Global Witness
Profile
An organisation campaigning to end environmental and human rights abuses driven by the exploitation of natural resources and corruption in the global political and economic system.

Stop Ecocide
Profile
This campaign aims to make Ecocide - the mass damage or destruction of ecosystems - a crime under international law.

Gender CC
Research
Gender CC is a directory of resources exploring the ties between gender inequality and climate injustice

The Environmental Justice Atlas
Research
An interactive tool documenting and cataloguing global conflict around environmental issues.

This Changes Everything
Book
Naomi Klein is an author who has written extensively about climate change and it's ties to Capitalism in her books This Changes Everything, The Battle For Paradise, and On Fire.

The Great Derangement
Book
The Great Derangement by Amitav Ghosh examines our society's collective inability to grasp the scale and violence of climate change.

Dr Vandana Shiva
Book
Dr Vandana Shiva has written more than 20 books covering topics including agro-ecology, ecofeminism, biodiversity, biopiracy and food sovereignty.

Decolonizing Nature: Contemporary Art and the Politics of Ecology
Book
T J Demos explores how artists and activists have utilised culture for climate justice.

If Not Us Then Who
Video
An online directory of films made in participation with Indigenous communities around the world. The films span themes of activism, different knowledge systems, how the communities live in harmony with the planet, and how climate and environmental changes affect their lives.

Fashion Revolution
Profile
Fashion is one of the most polluting industries globally. Fashion Revolution, founded in the wake of the Rana Plaza factory collapse in Bangladesh, campaigns for a clean, safe, fair, transparent and accountable fashion industry. Environmental protection and circularity are key principles in their organisational manifesto.

Ken Saro-Wiwa
Profile
Ken Saro-Wiwa was a writer, television presenter and environmental activist. He was killed, along with 8 others for protesting Royal Dutch Shell's oil extraction in his native Ogoniland. The activists are collectively known as the Ogoni 9.

Trash Academy
Profile
Trash Academy is a project from Creative Climate Leadership participant Ron Whyte, working with young people to reclaim public and private spaces from effects of trash and pollution in Philadelphia. Find out more in his Creative Climate Chat with Julie's Bicycle.

N'dau Festival of the Arts
Profile
Creative Climate Leadership participant Phillip Kusasa, founder of the N'dau Festival of the Arts celebrates his Indigenous culture through dance and performance, documenting environmental knowledge held in N'dau stories. This was developed into workshops and policy recommendations.