WOMAD has always prided its self on being an industry leader towards leaving a minimal environmental footprint, and heading into the 2017 festival WOMAD continues the strive to become a completely zero waste-to-landfill festival.
“Zero waste is a powerful concept that challenges old ways of thinking and inspires new attitudes and behaviour. The multifaceted approach integrates the four Rs of waste minimisation: reduce, reuse, recycle and rethink, to conserve the Earth’s limited resources. The strategy has developed a benchmark for other events to aspire to and the amount of festival waste entering landfills has been reduced by 85% since the first WOMAD held in New Plymouth in 2003. It is just one of the ways that the WOMAD New Zealand Charitable Trust achieves its goal of delivering a quality experience to attendees and has established WOMAD NZ’s reputation as a clean, green festival site.”
– Suzanne Porter, Chief Executive – WOMAD
“There are over 4 million of us in Aotearoa, and 4 million actions adds up to a big difference.” – Sean Weaver, CEO – Ekos
Ekos is a rainforest carbon boutique, supplying fair-trade-styled, community based rainforest carbon offsets for the NZ voluntary carbon offset market. This focuses on helping businesses become carbon neutral whilst saving a rainforest and helping indigenous peoples with community development. Website link: http://www.ekos.org.nz/
Photo credit: Ekos
Heading into the 2017 festival WOMAD are keen to remind everyone it is a carbon-neutral event and appreciates everyone’s efforts, particularly festival go-ers, by using the Zero Waste bins on site and being conscious of the impact of their actions.