Sustainability

What have we achieved so far?

• In 2013 we started shopping local, with the aim of sourcing as much of our event infrastructure as possible from the local area. It made sense. In Suffolk we have a wide range of businesses that work in the events industry. By shopping local, we not only cut down our  road miles but the money we spend stays circulating in the local economy.

•  This year was also the start of our ongoing work with the East Suffolk Community Rail Partnership and the HACT voluntary minibus service, encouraging festival goers to use the train, providing  a free shuttle bus between the event site and the local station at Wickham Market.

• In 2014 we were awarded the Suffolk Carbon Charter (Silver) for our initial steps  towards reducing our carbon footprint and for the future planning commitment we had made, beginning with monitoring and analysing data on fuel use and rubbish generated.We introduced our first solar powered stage.

• In 2017 we teamed up with Midas power, a fellow Carbon Charter holder and a company dedicated to Sustainable event power generation. We had already cut our fuel consumption by one third since 2013 and Midas had the tools and knowledge to take this much further. We were awarded a new Carbon Charter at Gold level and started work on the creation of “The Green Team” a dedicated team of volunteer stewards who had a passion for sustainability and a plan for the future.

• In 2019 we banned the use of single use plastic and introduced the first of our free chilled water stations in the arena, we encouraged people to bring their own drinking bottles as well as providing our own branded bottles, this saved an entire skip that would normally have been full of plastic.

• Midas Power managed  a further 20% fuel saving and the area powered by solar increased to running one stage, a cinema tent and an entire area of woodland.

• In 2021 we changed our waste contractor to a local private company who are brilliant at recycling. V.C.Cook achieve around a 75% recycling rate by hand sorting all waste and this was combined with a trial plan asking all of our campers to take their rubbish home with them in a bag we provided.

• Midas Power introduced the first “Power Cube” in our back stage area, this cut one generator running time from 348 hours to 121 hours.

• In 2022, we were awarded our third Carbon Charter (Gold). It is important to FolkEast to encourage everyone – from crew, production , artists, stall holders, festival goers, suppliers –  to join us on the journey to make the festival as sustainable as we can, working together.  

• FolkEast was awarded a grant from the New Anglia Local Enterprise Partnership to build a second solar generator that allows us to double our solar capacity on site.

• We have taken the Vision 2025 pledge and are working with “A Greener Festival” to help us on the road to Carbon net zero.

Watch this space.

Powering our way to a brighter future

We were delighted to be successful in our application to the New Anglia Community Renewal Fund ‘Road to net Zero’ Grant Scheme to enable us to buy a Solar Power System that will generate a constant 32 amp supply. This means that we will be able to run all of our LED site lighting and a fair size section of the arena from the sun!

By doing this, it is estimated that we will be able to save 410 litres of diesel that would normally be used in a conventional site generator. In turn, this will result in an estimated reduction of 1.28 tonnes of CO2e emissions released into the atmosphere during the festival.

The aim is to make the Solar Power System mobile and available to other events in the area to help reduce all our carbon footprints.

The kit will compliment the Solar Decker Bus that already provides all the power needed to run the stage in the woods and the the magical fairy lights in the wood.

Working together we can begin to make a difference.