Driving Sustainability Through Festival Staffing

Every summer, our team heads out across the UK - from rural countryside to vibrant inner cities - to staff incredible events ranging from world-class EDM festivals to the weird and wonderful vents that make each summer unforgettable.

But behind the excitement and creativity of festival culture lies a growing challenge: ensuring these events remain sustainable and minimise their impact on the environment. You can learn more about the environmental impact of festivals in our blog: Our Mission to Leave No Trace at Festivals.

As a company which has impact at the heart of our business,  we’re committed to working alongside organisers to reduce waste, champion responsible practices, and support festivals in becoming greener year after year. In this post, Lizzie Wright, Head of Operations, who specialises in festival staffing operations, shares her knowledge to provide support and inspiration for festival organisers looking for more sustainable practices.

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Festivals across the country are under growing pressure to reduce their environmental impact. From audiences to local authorities, the expectation for greener, more responsible events is increasing every year. As an event staffing agency, we recognise that we are only one part of a much wider operation, and many sustainability decisions sit far beyond our remit.

Even so, the influence we hold over thousands of team members each season means we can still drive meaningful change. Through the way we hire, the way we move people, and the way we educate teams onsite, staffing decisions can have a direct and positive environmental impact.

While we cannot control the energy sources for a festival site or the waste management systems in place, we do have the ability to shape behaviours, reduce unnecessary travel and embed responsible practices within the parts of the operation we lead. Small actions, when repeated across hundreds of events and thousands of shifts, create significant long-term benefits.

Track and Monitor Emissions

Understanding your impact begins with measurement. For the past four years, we have tracked our Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions to build a realistic picture of how our operations contribute to environmental outputs. You cannot meaningfully reduce emissions if you do not know where they come from. By monitoring energy use, business mileage, team travel miles and operational processes, we can identify the areas that carry the biggest environmental weight. Tracking also supports transparent reporting to clients and strengthens long term reduction strategies.

Travel Emissions Matter More Than Most People Realise

Among the various contributors to environmental impact, travel remains the most significant for staffing companies. Festivals bring people together from all corners of the UK, but the journeys taken by team members, particularly long distance travel, account for the majority of our Scope 3 emissions. Late shift confirmations, remote locations and the need for last minute replacements often increase travel unnecessarily. By planning earlier, forecasting more accurately and reducing the need for long distance journeys, we can meaningfully lower our carbon footprint while also reducing costs and inconvenience for our team.

Local Recruitment Makes a Real Difference

Festivals happen everywhere: cities, rural towns, coastal locations and remote countryside. The geography alone creates challenges when it comes to sustainable staffing. One of the simplest and most effective ways to reduce emissions is to prioritise local recruitment. Hiring people from the surrounding area reduces travel miles, cuts accommodation needs and builds stronger connections with local communities. Working with universities, job centres, colleges and community groups helps reach people already based near the event, creating a more reliable workforce and bringing down the environmental impact that comes from long distance travel.

Educate and Empower the Team

While we cannot control every sustainability decision on a festival site, we can influence the thousands who represent us. Educating our team members on sustainable behaviours makes a difference both operationally and culturally. By providing guidance during briefings, encouraging refillable bottles and reusable items, and sharing sustainability pledges, we help embed responsible habits into day-to-day festival life. When this is reinforced by managers and welfare teams onsite, the collective effect is tangible. Empowered teams make better choices, and better choices create greener outcomes.

Re-use and Recycle with Purpose

Camping festivals in particular generate significant waste, often from low-cost items bought for single use. Encouraging re-use is one of the most effective ways to reduce this footprint. We encourage team members to reuse camping equipment from previous seasons, borrow rather than buy, and make use of our small supply of second-hand items that can be loaned out. At the end of events, we collect usable equipment left onsite and store it for future use. Alongside this, our “Leave No Trace” teams help ensure that every area is left exactly as we found it.

Sustainability in festivals is a collective effort, and staffing plays a more influential role than many realise. By focusing on tracking, travel, local recruitment, education and re-use, we contribute to a culture of responsibility that supports both environmental and social outcomes. These changes may be small in isolation, but across an entire festival season, they compound into significant progress for the industry.