Busy Busy at Germany’s Green Music Initiative

Our friends at the Green Music Initiative in Germany have had a busy summer and sent us an update of what they have been up to – and some future plans – and we thought we could share this with you.

First of all GMI hosted a special dinner a the Melt! Festival and you can see two short videos about a greener Melt! and the green Melt! dinner here  http://www.greenmusicinitiative.de/2011/08/klimaschutz-auf-dem-melt-festival/ and here http://www.greenmusicinitiative.de/2011/07/highlightfilm-green-melt-dinner-2011/

GMI have also been interviewing artists at festivals which as they say can “can lead to funny answers (Even more when you ask about Climate Change…)” and you can catch up with Harry McVeigh (White Lies) | JD Samson (Men, Le Tigre) | Monarchy | Nicolas Jaar | Architecture in Helsinki | FM Belfast | Gary Barber (Is Tropical) | Junip (José González) | Retro Stefson | Everything Everything | Little Dragon | Miss Kittin | We Have Band | Âme | Bodi Bill | King Kong Kicks | M.A.N.D.Y. | Alec Empire | Apparat Band | Housemeister | Kiki here http://www.greenmusicinitiative.de/2011/08/melt-artist-interviews-2011/

Don’t forget the Berlin Music Week: From September 7th to 11th Berlin Music Week will take place again with Popkomm Business Fair, Alltogether Now conference, Berlin Festival, XBerg Club, What’s Up Mitte, Kulturbrauerei, New Music Awards and many more events to move and groove lovely Berlin – and GMI are an official partner for the Berkin Music Week  http://www.berlin-music-week.de/en/home

And finally GMI will be involved again with Green Events Europe which will take place in Bonn on November 2nd and 3rd 2011 hosted by our friends from the RhineKultur festival. And A Greener Festival will be there too! More at http://www.green-events-germany.eu/ (German)  and http://www.green-events-germany.eu/index.php?&L=1 (English)

Gibson faces ebony investigation in US

Guitar maker Gibson is the target of a federal investigation in the United States of America over allegations that endangered tropical hardwoods have been used to make guitars. The company strongly denies the claims. The authorities say they may charge Gibson with illegally importing ebony from India but Gibson’s Chief executive, Henry Juskiewicz, said “we will fight aggressively to prove our innocence”.  In 2009 guitars and pallets of wood were seized at Gibson according to the Times newpaper.

Another guitar maker, C F Martin and Sons have described the difficulty in getting musicians to switch to instruments mad from sustainable materials.  Numerous countries have laws that prevent the use of endangered plants and timber.

New book on green events launches

A new textbook covering the exciting new world of sustainable meetings, conferences, exhibitions, festivals and events has been written by Sam Goldblatt and features interviews with over 50 industry leaders around the world in order to put together a global perspective on sustainable practices for the events and entertainment industries. And not only does The Complete Guide to Greener Meetings and Events feature over 30 fabulous full-colour photos, it is printed with ink containing soy content on paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) and is bound with 85% pre-consumer recycled fibre! You can buy the book here http://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Greener-Meetings-Events-Management/dp/0470640103 and find out more at http://greenerevents.wordpress.com/ and on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greener-Meetings-and-Events/139448716124158

A LOT MEANT TO HAPPEN!

Beans to the left, rhubarb to the right!

Two years ago I was allocated one tenth of a field just outside the town where I live which was overgrown with weeds, waterlogged (at the time – there had been floods!) and a complete mess. A local environmental  group were really instrumental in getting the Town Council to find more space for allotments (as there was a long long waiting list for the only available  ite) and they succeeded. So in October 2009 a field was found and rented and after a winter spent clearing the field, ploughing (thanks to a very kind farmer), laying drains, rotavating, digging and taking out vast quantities of rocks and rubbish (the field was rocky anyway and used to dump waste material from the nearby bypass) it’s amazing what a lot of hard work, wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow full of horse manure, home made compost and quite a lot of rain can achieve! 2010 was a planting year really – spuds to break up the soil and putting in plants things like raspberry bushes, strawberry plants and rhubarb. And lots of weeding.  Lots and lots of weeding. And just a few things to nibble on!

But now it Is all paying off and my allotment is now (in its second year) finally providing more than enough vegetables and fruits – and as ever – its give away time! I don’t use any pesticides or weedkillers and try and I grow everything organically – and here’s a tip – its amazing what you can find on Freecycle – the old scaffolding plants for my raised beds, a roll of chicken wire for my compost bins and a vanfull of sand to improve the soli were all free! And my builder friend Darren (guitarist with The Grip) helped me go skip raiding (with permission!) for old wooden flagstone crates which make perfect compost bins (and suggested the pun for the headline here)! He gets paid in veggies for his voluntary work!

And now its just great to have home grown courgettes, cabbages, lettuces, rhubarb, potatoes and runner beans all available fresh daily –  along with the last of the peas and  broad
beans where the crop is just ending now. Still to go – onions, celery, chard, pumpkins and more cabbages and NEXT year some lovely looking asparagus, which sadly I can’t touch this year as I need to wait whilst the root system strengthens. Also on the menu –  if you leave courgettes for too long they basically turn into marrows! Now sadly gone (and eaten!) are the strawberries and gooseberries, with just a few rasberries left now this year – but with newly planted blackberry bushes looking like they will be productive too! I even put in some sunflowers I was given (thanks Jo!) which are now enormous and buzzing with bumble bees.

Its been amazing to see the transformation of a field into allotment gardens – and not without problems I have to admit – but now its great to reap the harvest!

ANOTHER PLANET

Important wildlife habitats for seabirds such as puffins  and razorbills will be put at risk if oil drilling is allowed of the UK coast according to the RSPB.  The RSPB is concerned that the latest round of oil and gas exploration could lead to drilling just a few miles of the UK’s coast.

IKEA, the world’s largest furniture retailer, has installed 39,000 solar panels on the rooftops of its UK stores as part of its goal to derive all of its energy from renewable sources.  While  the Swedish retailer has not set a deadline for using 100% renewable energy, it could reach 80% of its target by 2015.

Military land across the United States is to be opened up for private investors to install renewable energy infrastructure.  The US army said it would be seeking private investors to back ‘large scale’ renewable energy projects on its land to increase energy security, save money, generate revenues, meet federal targets and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Durham University Solar Car students will be setting off on a sun-powered adventure this autumn when they take part in the World Solar Challenge. Using nothing but solar power, the DUSC team will travel 1,864 miles (3,000km) from Darwin in the north of Australia to Adelaide in the south.

Edie.net reports that whilst algae may be a good future source of energy. the environmental issues it causes could mean it’ll never be used on a large scale. New research from the New University of Virginia in the US found that algae-based fuels could produce ‘high’ energy outputs with minimal land  use, but their production could also come with ‘significant environmental burdens’.

The UK’s Environment Agency has cut its carbon emissions by almost a fifth since 2006-7, including reducing its office waste by 18% and sending 66% less to landfill.  New figures in
the agency’s first internal environment management update show that during the past five years, the organisation has also reduced its mileage by 33%, clamped down on building energy consumption by 15% and reduced mains water use by 18%. The agency measures its environmental performance in five key areas, with ambitious 2015 targets set for each. One of these is to reduce CO2 emissions by 33% by 2015 from 2006-7 levels.

News comes to us from Sam Goldblatt that his new book,  The Complete Guide to Greener Meetings and Events will be available in print this September. You can find out more here on his blog: http://greenerevents.wordpress.com/ and on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Greener-Meetings-and-Events/139448716124158

US based Sustainable Waves and Kleege Industries have partnered to build the largest solar powered hybrid stage in the USA. The stage is a Stageline SL250 integrating a 4.83-ilowatt (4830 watts) solar array, which supplies sunlight to (2) 800 amp batteries totaling 1600 amps of storage. The array powers (4) Outback Systems Inverters pumping 120 amps of power at 120 Volts. The stage also houses a 10 KW bio-diesel generator equipped with an auto start feature making this stage 100% self-contained.  www.sustainablewaves.com

Five dead in Pukklepop tragedy

At least five people have died and many more injured at the 60,000 capacity Pukklepop Festival in Belgium after a storm swept through the popular open-air music festival in the town of Hasselt, 50 miles east of Brussels. The storm hit the site in the late afternoon on Thursday 18th August. Concertgoers described scenes of panic as the sky darkened, the winds whipped, rain poured, hailstones nearly half an inch across pelted the crowds, and concert structures buckled. The worst affected area was the Chateau Stage which collapsed as the Smith Westerns began their set.  Lead singer Cullen Omori  told Pitchfork: “We had just finished the first song of our set at Pukkelpop when the stage/tent started shaking. We simply thought it was a storm passing through. I made a comment about Cheap Trick, and we were about to play the next one, when our tour manager yelled at me to run off the stage. Right then the tress collapsed one foot in front of Max. At this point we thought only the stage broke, not the tent. Amid the chaos it was hard to tell exactly what had happened, but after the rescue teams started coming in it became clear that there were severe injuries and we are now being told there are reports of multiple deaths. Our thoughts and prayers go out to the families who lost loved ones in today’s tragedy”.

Hugo Simons, Hasselt’s head of emergency medical planning, told VRT radio that three people had died, 11 had been severely injured and 60 had sustained light injuries as a result of the storm and the numbers have since moved upwards. Ambulances ferried the seriously injured to nearby hospitals. Some of those lightly injured were being treated at a local sports complex. More than 20 ambulances were dispatched to the festival ground. Dutch NOS television reporter Rick Hoogkamp, who was attending the concert Thursday, said several tents collapsed. An AP reporter saw concession stands blown down and a large food tent spread across the ground. Initially only the remainder of Thursday’s shows, including Foo Fighters’ headline performance, were cancelled, but as the death toll rose and the extent of the damage became clearer, organisers decided to call off the whole event and Chokri Mahassine, the organiser of the festival who is a MEP initially said, “We have for now put the festival on hold until we understand the situation completely” Then confirmed the event’s cancellation saying “Pukkelpop is in deep mourning. We truly sympathise with the families and friends of the victims. Words are not enough. We have struggled with the [initial] decision to continue the festival. Therefore we have decided to cancel Pukkelpop 2011. What has happened is very exceptional and could not have been predicted. We are deeply moved by all the spontaneous support the festival goers and the organisation have received … We ask everyone to understand that this decision was extremely difficult to make”. The news follows on from the disaster at the Indiana State Fair in the US on Saturday when a storm hit just before country stars Sugarland were due to perform on the event’s Hoosier Lottery Grandstand stage killing five and injuring dozens more, and a stage collapse during a storm whilst Cheap Trick were onstage at the Ottawa Bluesfest in July

Video here http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2011/aug/19/belgium-pukkelpop-festival-stormsand here http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-14582448

Sunrise Off Grid – turn off, switch on!

ANOTHER PLANET

John Vidal has written a scathing damnation of activities of international oil companies in the Niger Delta in Nigeria in the Observer (07.08.11), naming and shaming Shell for polluting what was once a beautiful and productive environment.  You can read more about the destruction of the Ogoni region in “Deep in the delta, the perfect village that died from a tide of oil pollution”  here  http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/aug/06/shell-oil-spills-niger-delta-pollution . News is also breaking that Shell appear to have a leaking oil platform in the North Sea. The Gannet Alpha platform is 112 miles east of Aberdeen. The company did not say how much oil had been spilt.

Torrential rains and floods in North Korea have destroyed at least 4,700 homes in the South Hwanghae province with more than 28,000 people affected according to the Red Cross.

A new film by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, updating British viewers on his Fish Fight against barmy EU fishing policies – and unsustainable overfishing . Its a great campaign and there is a thoughtful article in the Guardian by George Monbiot “EU and fish quotas: who will protect these fish from our feeding frenzy” saying “the EU tells Iceland and the Faroes to stop their fishing frenzy of mackerel, but only because it wants to plunder the stock itself …. more at  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/08/eu-fishing-quotas-feeding-frenzy .

British designers hope to have a fully electric and partly solar powered ferry operational by late 2012. Southampton based BMT Nigel Gee has won the order for the design of a £25M all electric 150 passenger ferry for the Chinese market. 

Edie.net reports that Cardiff’s Millennium Stadium has announced it is the first stadia in the UK to achieve BS 8901.  It comes less than one year after the stadium decided to improve its sustainability credentials in line with the British Standard.  The stadium now boosts a host of environmental features with a palletised pitch system, with rainwater harvesting below the grass beds,  Infra-red controls fitted to the urinals also stop unnecessary flushing, meters monitor energy and water consumption, new LED lighting and light controls as well as alternative methods of water heating mean boilers can be shut down in summer.  The stadium also promotes public transport on event days. 

Abandoned dogs are going to be kept warmer in a more environmental way after a wood pellet heating system was built at their Dogs Trust home in Shropshire. The kennels will have its heating and hot water powered by a wood pellet boiler. Other new improvements include wall insulation, triple glazing, rainwater harvesting and recycling and solar PV panels on the roof. 

Dragons Den businessman Peter Jones has been criticized after deeming solar energy ‘unaffordable’ on the popular BBC programme. All the other Dragons were impressed and Ploughcroft Solar secured an investment of £100,000 for a 25% equity share in the business from two Dragons, Deborah Meaden and Theo Paphitis

Extra support is being offered to local authorities in Wales by the Welsh Assembly to help them meet ambitious waste and recycling targets. Wales has statutory targets for municipal recycling. The first target is 52% in 2012-13, increasing to 58% by 2015-16, 64% by 2019-20 and 70% by 2019-20. 

Amrik Johal, 53, of Slough has been ordered to ordered to repay more than £800,000 under the Proceeds of Crime Act (2002) and given a two year community sentence after pleading guilty to five charges of causing controlled waste to be kept contrary to Section 33 of the Environment Protection Act 1990 for running the illegal waste dump on his land at Colnbrook Bypass, Colnbrook, Slough. 

Organic Recycling has announced it is planning develop a ‘super waste’ site in Crowland, Lincolnshire, with the capability to treat over 100 different types of waste. The facilities will include anaerobic digestion (AD) plant and biomass boiler, an in-vessel composting facility, a dry recycling transfer station, a water treatment plant, with further concrete areas for windrow composting and a dry recycling facility. 

Plastic bottles left on the London Underground are going to be reprocessed back into food packaging in a recycling drive. Brewer Corrs Moslon have said that they will target  waste and carbon emissions from their four UK plants, hoping to divert all production waste from landfill by 2012.

New Research from LG Refrigeration shows that more than half of UK households chuck away at least 10% of the food they buy – and 20% of us waste more than 25%.  Turn these percentages into cash and you get five billion pounds heading for the bin. Yes, the UK wastes £5 BILLION in food every year. The most wasteful by region are the Northern Irish (30.75%) while the Welsh are seen as the most careful (wasting just 11.63%). Most of all this wasted food will not be going into council food disposal or composting programmes; the rotting food will be heading for landfill sites – another a cost not included here.

Hummer have  launched a ‘green’ car  - the new electric MEV Hummer HX. However, the car only has 60-100 mile driving range and only seats two,  And it isn’t four wheel drive.  But wth a top speed of 45-50mph, you wont be risking to many speeding fines!

 

Truck money woes, Secret Garden Party security fiasco

Our friends at the Truck Festival are looking for a solution to their money woes after dissapointing sales at this year’s event in Oxfordshire. We have great admiration for the Truck and Wood team here, and their green efforts have been brilliant – and we just hope this fabulous event can survive. You can read more here http://www.oxfordmail.co.uk/news/yourtown/oxford/9179370.Truck_Festival_in_fight_for_survival/. Organiser Robin Bennett said “Things are still a little unclear, but the situation is not looking good. Our revenue has not been adequate to cover the cost of this year’s event and we have been left with a major hole. We are a small family business and we cannot sustain that kind of loss, and are now reaching out to find a method of dealing with it”. Explaining the situation, he added ”We didn’t have enough full-price ticket holders, and bar and food spending, which we hoped would make a contribution to profits, wasn’t high … The market this year is dire. There are just too many festivals”. Truck is urgently looking for investors.

We were sent this link to a fairly apallinging short film by Charlie Veitch about an incident involving some of the security staff at Secret Garden Party on July 24th. Its worth a watch. Whilst we don’t know the background to how the whole incident started, and clearly the footage has been edited, when I mentioned the incident to one of the Greener Festival team who was at SGP, they did say that whilst it was a great event, they themselves had a run in with one female member of the security staff which was highly unpleasant. As this film says – “this footage is both distressing and depressing”.  It is to us, but make your own mind up at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wF8MLPDAsUs. We hope the Police, the Security Industry Authority and especially the organisers of SGP take a look too!

If you are interested in what festival fans (well Guardian readers here) think about greener festivals, take a look at this interesting discussion forum on on the Guardian’s website – it meanders a bit and flows here and there - but it is remarkably polite and well expressed for a internet discussion (!) and covers a whole host of issues festival goers and festival organiers face when trying to be ‘green’ -  you can see more here  http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/jun/21/music-festivals-glastonbury-green-environment#post-area

Saddle up for Berlin on August 20th

Eavis calls for sky lantern ban

Following on  from the BBC Countryfile investigation into the damage and injury that can be caused to the countryside by Chinese Lanterns, The BBC One show on Tuesday 2^nd August highlighted the ever growing problem with Chinese or ‘sky’ lanterns, the paper lanterns that fly into the night sky when lit. The One Show looked at fire damage to cars from rogue lanterns, the real risk of houses fires – and even personal injury to both adults and children from molten wax.

The Civil Aviation Authority has asked the public  not to use sky lanterns near airports. The Coastguard have had said they have had hundreds of false emergency calls are caused by sky lanterns. The NFU wants a total ban on Sky lanterns, saying they cause damage to farmland, the countryside and to grazing animals and the Chief Fire Officers Association says that there should be a Government review and a ban should be looked  at – saying that safety issues outweigh other considerations. Glastonbury  organiser Michael Eavis has banned sky lanterns  at the Festivals (although they are still snaked in) but Michael says that there is a real risk of tents catching fire – and cattle have already been  fatally injured . Michaels says that they should be banned as they are a “real real menace”

There are safer Sky Orbs with solid fuel cells and flame retardant paper, and following instructions will improve safety, but  in Germany and Australia sky lanterns have been banned and many like Michael Eavis want a total ban, NOW.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0134hbr/The_One_Show_02_08_2011/

ANOTHER PLANET

British household energy use increased by 18% between 1970 and 2009, according to new statistics. Information, revealed by the Office of National Statistics (ONS), show domestic energy consumption increased from 37 million tonnes of oil equivalent in 1970 to 44 million tonnes of oil equivalent in 2009.  The statistics, published in the latest chapter of the Social Trends, also show in 2008, 5.6% of all electricity consumption in the UK was from renewable resources. 

A Green event! edie.net had exclusive access a festival aimed at gathering like-minded environmentalists together, The Little Green Gathering, which took place earlier this month. You can read more at http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?src=nl&id=20452

Firefly Solar have recently finished a commission that saw them team up with Timberland on their Earthkeeper power camp tour. Firefly were asked to design the electrical system for the bespoke ‘log rollers’ and also modified a number of the supplied smoothie bikes to include Firefly’s Kinetric PedGen systems. The power generated was stored in Firefly’s Cygnus solar generator for use when required.  The Earthkeeper power camp is an interactive consumer experience that educates people on Timberland’s environmental commitments by offering hot drinks and smoothies that are made using the energy supplied by the log rollers and Kinetrics devices.  Users at Cornbury and more recently at Camp Bestival were either asked to roll the log roller for six minutes or pedal on the modified bikes for the same amount of time in exchange for a cup of tea or a cool fruit smoothie.

And more from Firefly – as result of Firefly’s sustainability consultation Lovebox Festival have been awarded 2* status out of 3 in Julie’s Bicycles Industry Green (IG) certification scheme for their 2010 event.  Lovebox was one of only two major UK festivals to achieve the 2* rating.  The policies Firefly introduced helped the festival to lower its carbon footprint by 38%. This rating was achieved by integrating renewable power sources, encouraging public transport, increasing recycling, reducing waste to landfill and introducing a sustainable procurement policy. Firefly are also providing Coca-Cola Enterprises with 6 of its Cygnus generators to power the company’s Event Recycling programme at outdoor events in Great Britain and France. Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) piloted its Event Recycling programme during 2010 with the objective to motivate festival goers to make recycling a daily habit. The Programme recovered over 18 tonnes of recyclate (PET and cans) and reached an audience in excess of half a million people attending eight festivals during the summer of 2010.

Renewable energy pioneers, Good Energy Group, will provide international clothing retailer SuperGroup with 100% renewable electricity to over 70 of SuperGroup’s UK shops, warehouses and offices.  Under the new contract, SuperGroup – owner of Cult clothing stores and the Superdry brand – will also benefit from GEG equipment and software to facilitate better energy management across the organisation. 

Pub chain  JD Wetherspoons, which runs almost 800 pubs, has increased like for like sales of 2.2% for against the same period last year and working with emissions reductions experts, Carbon Statement, the chain has also managed to reduce its energy costs by an average of 7% per pub – not bad considering  the chain has also began opening at 7am, with sales of coffees and cooked breakfasts filling the tills and adding to energy bills. 

Edie.net reports that the deteriorating quality of plastic collected for recycling is costing local authorities £10M each year, owing to a reduction in the sale value of the material. Leading plastics recycler. ECO Plastics is concerned that local authority spending cuts could further reduce the quality of recycling collections and that, ultimately, councils could face a yearly bill of £20M to landfill the poorest quality materials which cannot be recycled. 

Plastic bag use in the UK is UP! New figures released by WRAP show a total of 6.4 billion single-use bags were used by supermarket customers across the UK in 2010.  Overall plastic bag use increased by 5% compared to 2009 when 6.1 billion bags were used.  

A community group in Skye are now the proud owners of almost 4.5million square metres of forest, after a successful bid to purchase the land from the government.   Sleat Community Trust first announced plans to purchase Tolmore Forest in 2009 following the Forestry Commission’s confirmation that the plot was to be sold and raised £330,000 for the deal.