Volunteer on the Green Team! Help us save the planet, one festival at a time – We’re looking for volunteers who are full of energy, passionate about the environment and enjoy engaging with people about green issues. As a member of our Green Team you will receive a crew wristband, get to camp in crew camping with like-minded people and access to hot showers and nice toilets. You will also gain valuable experience in the sustainable events field, whilst taking time to enjoy the festival when not volunteering.

Applications will open in early 2023, please email gmessengers@festivalrepublic.com for further information in the meanwhile.

The Leeds Eco Campsite is back again!

Thanks to the amazing people who stayed last year, making it a huge success!

There is no extra cost to stay in the Eco Camp, but it comes with plenty of perks, as thanks for doing your part to keep it clean, recycle, and take home all your belongings. Your campsite is secure and exclusive to the campers choosing to stay here, it has clean and fresh compost loos, and host free group activities like yoga.

The Eco Campsite is for like-minded people who want to make a difference: You live life with the planet in mind, and want to stay in a clean, green field for a festival you’ll remember.

We must tell the truth about the climate emergency: Climate change is happening now, our past actions are the cause, and our future actions can help to alter the outcome.

Create Your Future. Stay in the Leeds Eco Campsite in 2023.

To stay in the Eco Camp every guest to sign up to the following principles:

1. All guests agree to respect their fellow campers: Be inclusive and curious, talk about what is important to you, and enjoy the festival together.

2. All guests agree to respect the environment by protecting biodiversity and avoiding littering: Separate your recyclable materials, use the toilets provided, and don’t cause excess waste.

3. All guests agree to leave the campsite exactly as they found it: Everyone here has joined the call, take your tent home, and show the way forward.

Create Your Future. Stay in the Leeds Eco Campsite in 2023. BOOK YOUR LEEDS ECO CAMP TICKET HERE.

In order to access the Leeds Eco Campsite, persons must also hold a valid weekend ticket to Leeds Festival 2022, as such it is understood that you must adhere to the festival terms and conditions. This registration form entitles you to book space in Eco Campsite only and you will be given an additional Leeds Eco Campsite wristband to access the area.

Music Festivals have an impact on the environment because of the transport taken, energy used, waste generated, water used, as well as the food and drink consumed. The Show Must Go On Report 2020 shows that the biggest impacts are travel, energy and waste.

As set out in our Sustainability Charter, we have a responsibility to preserve the live music experience for generations to come and have the opportunity to use our platform to inspire global environmental action.

We have signed up to the Vision 2025 pledge and are working towards a 50% reduction in event related greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 (from 2014 levels).

From 2012 to 2021, Leeds Festival participated in Creative Green Certification. This is an external assessment by Julie’s Bicycle, a charity who support the creative industries to act on climate change, to measure our understanding, commitment and improvement towards environmental sustainability. In 2019 we achieved five out of five stars, you can read the report here.

But it doesn’t stop there! Year-on-year we measure our Scope 1 & 2 carbon emissions. In 2022, we made the switch from diesel generators to HVO (Hydrotreated vegetable oil) which emits up to 90% less Greenhouse Gas emissions. We’ve made it easy for you to have the best time at Leeds while reducing your environmental impact See what you can do below.

Please see our Festival Charter here, which details our commitments to Environmental Sustainability and a number of other areas.

Travelling to the festival makes up at least 80% of a festivals carbon footprint (source: The Show Must Go On Report, 2020). You could travel by lower carbon forms of travel such as coach, train with direct shuttle buses to the festival or carshare to help reduce this. See our travel page for all options here

We have committed to reducing our carbon emissions by 50% by 2030. Most of our on-site emissions come from how we power the festival. In 2022 we powered 98% of the event with HVO biofuel, a form of renewable fuel that reduces emissions between 75 – 90% compared to the regular fuel that powers events. We are also looking into how to make Leeds Festival fully electric in future. Click here for more info.

We have put the following in place to reduce single use plastic at Leeds Festival:

– All our cups are paper, and we have had a deposit return scheme in place since 2007,

– We have Pepsi Max bars that avoid plastic bottles completely, serving your drink straight into a paper cup and offering refills,

– All our soft drinks and bottled water are made from at least 50% recycled plastic,

– Plastic cutlery and straws have been banned since 2009, and only compostable food containers are allowed,

– Bulk condiment bottles must be used by our food vendors instead of single-use sachets.

Big Green Coach are back as Official Travel Partner to Leeds 2023 and this year, all services are carbon neutral.

Travelling by coach emits less carbon than travelling car.

Coach travel is between 4 to 6 times more environmentally friendly than taking a car to a festival.

Take the hassle out of planning your journey and get dropped inside the festival gates, no one gets you closer.

They are running WEEKEND and DAY RETURN services from more than 40 pick-up locations.

WEEKEND SERVICES – Choose to arrive Wednesday, Thursday or Friday and they’ll get you home on Monday morning (feeling super fresh).

DAY RETURNS – Just heading in for the day? Big Green Coach will drop you at the gates before music starts and won’t leave until the action is over. Party hard and sleep all the way home!

Forget hotels, trains, and shuttle buses. Leave the car at home and forget being designated driver.

DEPOSIT SCHEME – Skint? No worries. Cover the cost of your seat for £10 and pay the rest later.

BOOK NOW

Putting the GREEN in Big GREEN Coach. Getting the coach is the greenest way to travel simply because it takes so many cars off the road.

This year Big Green Coach will calculate the emissions of each journey and invest in sustainable projects, ensuring your trip is carbon neutral. PLUS they will continue to sponsor 5 sq ft of Amazon Rainforest for 10 years, for every customer that travels with them. That’s more than one million sq ft already protected!

https://www.biggreencoach.co.uk/events/leeds-festival-tickets-coach-travel 

Please refill your water bottles at the taps provided. Please bring a refillable bottle with you to refill. View a list of everything you can and can’t bring here.

IN THE ARENA

Cups, bottles, and cans sold in the Arena may have a redeemable deposit applied to the price, which can be refunded when brought back to the Cup & Bottle Return Points in the correct quantities.

Please check back here closer to the date of the festival for more details.

IN THE CAMPSITES

As part of our commitment to increase recycling, all plastic bottles sold at the Co-op campsite supermarket will have a refundable deposit added to the price, campers are able to return the bottles to the reverse vending machine in exchange for a voucher to spend in the Co-op on-site store. The bottles collected at each festival will then go on to be recycled to create bottles for Co-op’s own brand bottled water.

We run a three-bin system at the festival, which means every bin station in the campsite and Main Arena will be formed by three bins:

COMPOSTABLE

When you buy food from the traders, everything your food comes in is compostable! All plates, cutlery and napkins from food traders can be placed in the Compostable waste bins, along with any food scraps. Please make sure no plastic goes into the compost.

RECYCLABLE

Plastic bottles, aluminium cans, newspapers, magazines and clean and dry cardboard (no used greasy pizza boxes as these do not recycle).

NOT RECYCLABLE

For anything else. There should be minimal left that is Not Recyclable.

We have Recycling Stations in the campsites with separate sections for Recyclable and Not Recyclable waste, where you can recycle just like you do at home.

Head over to the campsite Recycling Points to collect green recycling bags. We work with Everything is Possible who volunteer at the festival to spread the green message. Everything Is Possible are giving out prizes for tidy camps – look out for them and take your full bags to the recycling points.

Did you know that the amount of plastic in a single tent is the equivalent of 8,750 plastic straws, or 250 pint cups? Say no to single use, take your tent home!

Buy a durable tent that you can use again each year, it will save you money in the long run. See our ultimate guide to buying a tent here [https://www.leedsfestival.com/news/tent-guide]

Camping Plus and Pink Moon offer pre-pitched tent options, or if you’re bringing your own tent we ask you to take it home, along with any other camping equipment.

Only bring what you can take home with you. When packing ready for the festival weekend, remember to pack wisely and only bring essential items. See our “Pack the essentials” guide here.

The reality is that the majority of abandoned tents and camping equipment ends up going to energy from waste because it is impossible to recycle or reuse. If you have any broken tents, chairs, gazebos, used batteries, or unopened tins of food after the festival, please take them to the Recycling Points.

We put together a salvage operation after the festival for organisations to collect some of the perfectly reusable camping equipment that is left behind therefore reducing the amount of waste that goes to energy from waste. This is an opportunity for charities and community groups to come to the festival site on the Monday after the show and help save what they can. Please email salvagers@festivalrepublic.com to register your interest.

Food-related emissions make up to a third of global greenhouse gas emissions. In 2022, we worked with the London School of Economics to calculate the carbon footprint of the food sold by certain food traders at the festival, giving each menu a simple three-level carbon footprint rating for customers to see the impact of the food options and make a positive choice! We are looking to implement a food carbon footprinting initiative again in 2023, please check back here closer to the date of the festival for more details.