Summertime has just begun as well as all the events that go with it. Festivals, exhibitions, open-air movies and all other events taking place outdoor: big events with lots of culture, fun and too often… pollution! Fortunately, an ever-greater number of initiatives exist to make those events greener.

In order to promote and support these, Surfrider puts forward its own charter for environmentally responsible events.

Charter écoevent : what is it ?

As part of its campaign Reset your habits, aiming to modify one’s behaviors deeply and on a sustainable manner, Surfrider puts forward a charter with 8 main objectives in order to lessen the environmental footprint of the events. Surfrider identified those events as ephemeral sharing events and favorable for local economy. However, they also create strong environmental stresses with either direct or indirect consequences on the ocean.

Because mixing entertainment and ecology is not always easy, Surfrider decided to create this charter to the attention of events’ organizers, in order to make it easier to adopt an environmentally responsible approach.

For organizers,

For all organizers, this charter was created for you! A lot of ways to reduce your environmental footprint exist, Surfrider has selected 8 of them for you:

• Reducing your environmental footprint due to transportation: Choose a place easy to reach, everyone will be thankful
• Save on energy resources: power up your stage with solar energy
• Keep down water consumption: think of waterless toilets
• Reduce, sort and upgrade wastes: set up a visible collection and sorting system, and giant ashtrays
• Favor sustainable catering: Maximize the use of local products, even bio drinks
• Favor reusable/recyclable installations: Giving away ecocups is not enough… you’d rather lend some gear and give reusable goodies
• Communicate about sustainable development stakes: avoid to use posters or flyers and be more connected: send all the latest info by texts

For participants,

For all festival goers, do not forget you have your own responsibilities! To allow the party to keep on without any damages for our planet, you some easy behaviors and habits can be adopted. So if you are as fed up as we are to have a fence of cigarette butts around your tent or to slip on a plastic bottle while you are dancing, those few rules are for you.

Watch out for your garbage. Do not throw butts away randomly, neither your empty can. By the way, think of bringing your own bottle and have it filled at the watering places. A responsible festival goer should also care for his carbon footprint and favor soft transport modes in order to go to the festival.

Finally, it is easy to enquire about the event environmental policy in order to be aware of all the facilities available. And on top of everything, if you see your neighbor putting out his cigarette, lend him your pocket ashtray and pass the message.

This charter allows organizers and participants to create projects with values such as solidarity, ecology or social and solidarity economy. A good opportunity to have fun while enjoying an environmentally responsible experience.