With your help, Planet Bluegrass festivals continue to be a model of Sustainable Festivation*. Check out the sustainability programs built into the fabric of our festivals and see what new things we are up to in the “News and Updates” section.
*SUSTAINABLE FESTIVATION (n): Sustainable Festivation (n) is the act of creating a conscious, socially responsible community centered around a love of music, unwavering respect for the planet, an appreciation of the human experience, and thoughtful consideration of our intertwined futures.
We are delighted to announce that all three of our major Festivals (Telluride Bluegrass, RockyGrass, and Folks Festival) achieved the Greener Festival Improvers Certification in 2024.
The certification was achieved following a rigorous assessment process by not-for-profit sustainability specialists A Greener Future (AGF). The assessment involves detailed analysis of areas of sustainability such as transport, energy and power, waste, water usage, local environment, CO2 and food and beverages and involves an on site visit by qualified AGF assessors.
Improvers signifies great strides on the green event journey, with continued improvements, and shows your event exhibits a significant engagement with the process of reducing negative environmental impacts and enhancing positive impacts.
Founders of the world’s first sustainability standard for festivals and events in 2007, the AGF Framework has been used to guide, assess and certify hundreds of events, festivals and venues worldwide; providing independent audit and external verification.
A Greener Future (AGF)
‘Telluride Bluegrass Festival is held in Telluride Town Park in the heart of a beautiful, picturesque box canyon in the San Juan Mountains of Southwest Colorado. It brings world-class bluegrass artists and over 10,000 festivarians to this small community which embraces the festival as an annual highlight. The festival prides itself on minimizing its environmental impact, especially focusing on the waste generated. A dedicated team monitors waste and all points of disposal and ensures as high a diversion rate as possible for recyclables and compostables.’
AGF On Site Assessor
‘Rockygrass and Folks festival take place in the beautiful location of Lyons in the heart of Boulder at a permanent festival site, owned and managed by Planet Bluegrass. Both festivals are small- but in terms of environmental action punch well above their weight! As well as operating a reusable crockery scheme onsite Planet Bluegrass has written a “how-to” guide for other events wanting to do the same. There is great communication on environmental issues with the “Festivarians” who buy into and support the approach’
AGF On Site Asssessor
Our waste diversion rate for 2024 was 73% for Telluride and 48% for RockyGrass and Folks Festival. The average recycling rate for Colorado in 2021 was only 16% (Eco-Cycle & CoPrig). We’re ahead of the curve, but we’re not stopping there.
Reduce. REUSE. Recycle. Reducing and reusing is a higher priority than recycling. This is why we have been offering collectable REUSABLE long-lasting plastic cups with discounted refills for decades and have been running a reusable dish program at our festival grounds in Lyons, CO since 2016.
Since 2007, Planet Bluegrass has committed to voluntarily calculate and offset the Telluride Bluegrass Festival’s carbon footprint (which accounts for over 80% of the total Planetary impact of our 3 major festivals) by investing in carbon offsets. These are meaningful, measurable projects that either pull greenhouse gasses out of the atmosphere or prevent them from ending up there.
Telluride Bluegrass, RockyGrass, and Folks Festival achieved the Greener Festival Improvers Certification by the sustainability specialists A Greener Future (AGF) who completed an on site assessment of areas such as transport, energy and power, waste, water usage, local environment, CO2 and food and beverages.
PB has partnered with Aclymate, a local Colorado that offers an all-in-one plateform to help small business track emissions and purchase offsets, to develop software to estimate the carbon impact of events. Festivarians were asked to participate in a travel survey and purchase offsets for their travel.
PB along with the Town of Telluride, San Miguel County and the Telluride Foundation contributed to planed a 2,000 tree demonstration forest that at maturity will remove 48 tons of carbon dioxide each year.
Folk Alliance International’s “Clearwater Award” is given out annually to a festival that prioritizes environmental stewardship and demonstrates public leadership in sustainable event production.
We didn’t want to see our leftover catering go to waste, so we searched for a solution. In the first two years, we donated over 3000 pounds of food!
We pledged to reduce our reliance on single-use products. We invested in a program to wash plates made from bamboo, corn starch and sugar cane onsite at the festivals.
We chose to source our carbon offsets from a local Larimer County Landfill, just north of our headquarters in Lyons, Colorado. We purchased 2,496 metric tons of carbon offsets from this project.
We took the next step toward “zero-waste” by encouraging Festivarians to pack out everything that could not be recycled or composted.
We provided an alternative to bottled water as usual by offering free filtered water at the festival to help encourage our festival community to kick the bottled water habit.
We began neutralizing 100% of emissions caused by festival travel, electricity, diesel and gas by investing in innovative carbon reduction projects.
BIOTA was the World’s first bottled spring water/beverage packaged in a Planet Friendly™ commercially compostable plastic bottle. Our bottle was manufactured from a 100% renewable resource, corn, instead of oil.
We made the commitment to offset our footprint and invested in carbon offsets and renewable energy credits (REC’s) to mitigate the carbon dioxide (CO2) created by our electricity, diesel and gas consumption.
We worked with a local composter whose farm was located only 16 miles from the festival site. That led us to research compostable materials such as corn resin cups, plates and utensils that would turn back into food in the soil.
