x

The latest industry news to your inbox.


I'd like to hear about marketing opportunities

    

I accept IQ Magazine's Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy

feature

Green Guardians: Power

IQ Magazine’s second edition of the annual guide aims to boost the profile of sustainability pioneers working to make the live business greener

By IQ on 22 Oct 2021

Pohoda on the Ground operated using just electricity from the grid

Pohoda on the Ground operated using just electricity from the grid


image © Ondrej Koščík

The Green Guardians Guide, spearheaded by the Green Events and Innovations Conference (GEI) and IQ Magazine, is a new yearly initiative boosting the profiles of those working at the forefront of sustainability, in the hope that it might also inspire others.

The 2021 list, which originally ran in IQ 103, includes 40 entries across eight categories, highlighting some of the organisations and individuals who are working so tirelessly to reduce the carbon footprint of the live entertainment business.

This year’s winners have been chosen by a judging panel that includes experts from A Greener Festival, Greener Events, Julie’s Bicycle, the Sustainability in Production Alliance, the Sustainable Event Council and the Tour Production Group.

IQ will publish entries across all categories over the coming weeks. Catch up on the previous instalment of the Green Guardians Guide which looks at travel & transport.


Club La Feria
In May 2019, La Feria club in Santiago, Chile, became the first nightclub in the world to sustainably cover 100% of the energy it uses.

In a collaboration with Budweiser, the project included carefully retrofitting the historical structure with 35 photovoltaic panels on the roof and in the main wall.

In total, the facility will produce 1,299 kWh of energy monthly – more than enough to power its strobe lighting, cool down overheated clubgoers, run the sound system, and provide all other electrical needs.

This translates to a saving of 6.51 tons of CO2 annually that would have been otherwise emitted into the atmosphere – more than what five houses would consume.

That “Chile is at the forefront of sustainability in the region and probably the world,” is La Feria and Budweiser’s vision.

“We hope this initiative can inspire and motivate other clubs in Chile, and that in a few years [those that] operate on renewable energy are the rule and not the exception.”

The undertaking is the fusion of both worlds from the club and the brand.

La Feria’s commitment to inspire green initiatives in the music industry and in its community unites with Budweiser’s goal to transform its global production by 2025 to 100% clean energy.

La Feria club in Santiago, Chile, became the first nightclub in the world to sustainably cover 100% of the energy it uses

Ecotricity
Ecotricity’s mission is to fight climate change by scrapping the use of fossil fuels and giving people an alternative – green energy.

The company started with one windmill in Gloucestershire, UK, and has carried on building new wind and solar parks around the country.

Whenever a home or business switches to Ecotricity for their electricity, they stop using fossil fuel to power their home and start using green energy.

Other energy companies have followed Ecotricity’s lead, and today around 33% of the energy used in the UK comes from green sources.

Across the UK, homes and businesses are still predominantly heated using fossil fuels – mainly natural gas. Although Ecotricity’s gas is only about 1% from sustainable sources, the rest is carbon neutralised gas (the company invests in carbon reduction programmes to cancel out the carbon burned).

However, the company believes green gas is the way forward and it is constructing green gas mills – making biomethane from grass cuttings – to replace natural gas in the grid. When the grass grows back, it absorbs the carbon dioxide created by burning green gas. Then that grass is cut to make more green gas, and the sustainable cycle repeats itself.

Ecotricity’s mission is to fight climate change by scrapping the use of fossil fuels and giving an alternative – green energy

Greener
Greener was founded in January 2018, in order to make an impact on the carbon dioxide footprint of on and off-grid energy markets, using mobile batteries and smart energy planning.

The idea emerged in 2014, after a backstage visit to one of the biggest festivals in The Netherlands. Greener’s founders were shocked to discover how little thought had gone into accurately and efficiently planning the power supply of equipment such as lights, audio and food trucks.

As they investigated further, they saw the same lack of planning for energy efficiency in other areas, like construction sites and grid maintenance. Instead, all they could see was needlessly massive equipment running on very low-efficiency rates – a situation they felt compelled to change.

The people behind Greener are convinced that there are many opportunities to make practices in the energy sector less of a burden on the environment. The company sees solutions in technological innovation and it is bringing these to the market to make our world greener.

Greener was founded in order to make an impact on the carbon dioxide footprint of on and off-grid energy markets

Pohoda Festival
Pohoda on the Ground, the miniature 2021 version of Pohoda Festival with capacity limited to 1,000, was able to operate using just electricity from the grid.

Pohoda takes place on a local airfield that is in regular use. In its partnership with local energy provider, ZSE, the event’s production crew researched the maximum capacity of the local network and set up four points on the airport, where they could temporarily place high voltage 630kVA transformers.

“For the full capacity festival with 12 stages and 30,000 visitors, it covered about 40% of the festival energy needs in 2019. For the limited-edition 2021 [event], just two transformers were enough to cover it completely,” reports the event’s sustainability chief, Michal Sládek.

“As we cannot expand the local network further, our next intention is to use the transformers more efficiently. Although they are ideal for stages to handle the energy peaks in the shows, it appears that more energy is consumed in the services that are running continuously for the whole festival, as well as the food concessions. So, for the next edition of Pohoda, we plan to analyse thoroughly the energy use to find any possible savings and the optimal setup to feed the festival, efficiently, with energy.”

Pohoda on the Ground, the miniature 2021 version of Pohoda Festival, was able to operate using just electricity from the grid

Zap
Offering consultancy in energy and sustainability, ZAP Concepts has created a unique, straightforward, online power supplies application that has been designed to calculate the amount of power that an event needs in advance.

The new web application makes the collection of power information from all event suppliers extremely easy, quick, and efficient. All suppliers receive a link where they can submit details of their power consuming gear directly into the application, and event producers can select their gear from the database, which contains all possible power consumers at events, including all required data to make accurate energy calculations.

Instead of a power supplier trying to estimate the energy consumption at an event, organisers can select their own equipment in the tool. Zap can then calculate energy consumption with the help of an extensive set of parameters, and the system will create a customised Smart Power Plan within 72 hours.

The Zap tool provides information and suggests the most sustainable and efficient power supply for an event, allowing organisers to cut up to 80% of emissions, use fewer generators, increase the use of green batteries and create the most reliable power network for their event.

 


Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.