Every festival website now has a sustainability page. Reusable cups, recycling stations, carbon offsets — the messaging is everywhere. But having worked on the operational side of events for decades, I can tell you that the gap between sustainability marketing and sustainability practice is often enormous.

Let me separate what’s actually making a difference from what’s just feel-good branding.

What’s genuinely working

Reusable cup systems. This is probably the most visible and effective sustainability measure in Australian festivals. The model is simple: you buy or rent a cup at the bar and return it for a refund (or keep it as a souvenir). The waste reduction is dramatic — a major festival can eliminate hundreds of thousands of single-use cups over a weekend.

The operational challenges are real. You need a washing infrastructure, cup tracking system, and enough inventory to handle peak demand. But the festivals that have committed to this — and several major Australian events now use reusable cups exclusively — report significant waste reduction and, in many cases, cost savings once the system is established.

Water refill stations. Providing free water refill stations and banning single-use plastic water bottles is both a sustainability measure and a public health measure. The investment in infrastructure is modest, and it eliminates one of the largest sources of festival waste.

Food vendor sustainability requirements. The festivals making the biggest impact are the ones that include sustainability requirements in their vendor contracts. Compostable packaging, no single-use plastics, participation in waste sorting — these requirements push the entire supply chain toward better practices.

What’s mostly greenwashing

Carbon offset programs. I’m going to be blunt: most festival carbon offset programs are marketing exercises. Buying offsets for the carbon footprint of an event while making no structural changes to reduce emissions is a way of appearing environmentally responsible without actually being environmentally responsible.

The events that are genuinely addressing their carbon footprint are doing things like investing in renewable energy for site power, optimising logistics to reduce transport emissions, and choosing sites with public transport access. These are harder and more expensive than buying offsets, which is why most events don’t do them.

“Eco-friendly” merchandise. Slapping “sustainably sourced” on a t-shirt that’s been shipped halfway around the world doesn’t make it sustainable. Genuine sustainable merchandise — locally produced, from certified organic or recycled materials — exists, but it costs more and most events aren’t willing to absorb that cost.

The waste reality

A major music festival generates an astonishing amount of waste. A three-day event with 30,000 attendees can produce 200-400 tonnes of waste, of which typically only 30-40% gets recycled or composted. The rest goes to landfill.

The biggest waste streams are food and beverage packaging, abandoned camping gear (at camping festivals), and general litter. Of these, abandoned camping gear is the hardest to address — at some festivals, up to 60% of tents and camping equipment are left behind.

Some festivals have addressed this with camping gear donation programs, tent deposit schemes, or designated “pack in, pack out” camping zones. The results are promising but inconsistent. Changing behaviour at the individual level is the hardest part of event sustainability.

The energy question

Festival energy use is the elephant in the room of event sustainability. Most outdoor festivals rely on diesel generators for power, and the fuel consumption is substantial. A major festival’s generator fleet can burn 50,000-100,000 litres of diesel over a weekend.

Alternative energy sources — solar arrays, battery storage, biodiesel, hydrogen — are all being explored, and some Australian festivals have made real progress. But the energy density requirements of a festival sound system, lighting rig, and site infrastructure are substantial, and fully replacing diesel generation is still challenging with current technology.

The most practical near-term approach is hybrid systems that combine diesel generation with battery storage and renewable inputs. These can reduce diesel consumption by 30-50% while maintaining reliability, and several Australian festival operators are investing in this direction.

What audiences can do

Individual audience behaviour matters more than most people realise. The simplest things — taking your rubbish to the sorting stations, using the refill points, packing out your camping gear — collectively make an enormous difference.

But the responsibility shouldn’t sit primarily with individuals. It’s the event operators who design the systems, choose the suppliers, and set the standards. A well-designed waste management system with clear signage, sufficient stations, and adequate staff will achieve far higher diversion rates than a poorly designed one that relies on individual goodwill.

Sustainability in events is a journey, not a destination. The operators who are honest about where they are and transparent about what they’re working toward deserve more credit than the ones who slap an eco-badge on their website and call it done.