Tomorrowland is responsible for the emission of almost 150,000 tonnes of CO2, a new study showed, as reported by Belgian news outlet RTBF. Tapio, a company specializing in carbon footprint calculations and responsible for the study revealing the festival’s impact on the environment, said that the estimates are rather conservative. “The real carbon footprint may be 50,000 tonnes less, but more likely 100,000 or 150,000 tonnes more,” said Tapio CEO Louis Collinet. “What’s important, more than the figures themselves, are the orders of magnitude.”
The nearly 150,000 tonnes of CO2 emitted by the festival are equivalent to the 2.5% CO2 emissions reduction required of Belgium. It is also equivalent to the total CO2 emissions of 9,300 Belgian households in one year. Tapio’s report is divided in four sections: festival-related energy consumption, mobility, employees and artists, products and services sold on site, and waste treatment.
Tomorrowland initially reserved 50% of its tickets for non-Belgian residents but in the end 60% of the participants came from outside the country. This implies the festival aims to attract foreign customers. In its strategy, the festival offers packages including the festival, accommodation and a means of transport, be it train, bus or plane. According to RTBF, the “Global Journey Package”, which includes a plane ticket, is the most successful.
Going to a festival like this has an impact on the climate.
Louis Collinet, CEO Tapio
79% of CO2 equivalent emissions are linked to mobility as a whole, while 20% are linked to products and services sold, such as food, goodies, t-shirts and tents. Energy consumption and waste processing are relatively small compared to those linked to mobility, accounting for 0.15% and 0.17% of emissions respectively.
1. Air travel accounts for most emissions
An approximate 72% of the emissions are linked to air travel by those attending the festival. Tapio estimates that 100,000 Europeans and 40,000 non-Europeans flew to Belgium. Though a minority of the total number of participants, they accounted for 72% of the festival’s carbon footprint. This is without taking into account the emissions related to what they consumed at the festival. Their total carbon footprint would thus be even higher. “These proportions should help people understand that organizing a festival or going to one like this has an impact on the climate,” said Collinet.
According to Brussels Airlines, the company sold nearly 13,000 flight packages to music fans flying out of 69 different airports to Belgium for the festival, accounting for nearly 25,000 Tomorrowland passengers traveling to and from Brussels on more than 350 Brussels Airlines flights. In total, 46,000 Global Journey packages were sold to individuals of 133 nationalities. The five most common nationalities were American (almost 12%), German (10.5%), Spanish (over 7%), French and British (both just over 6%).
Tapio did not take into account the upstream logistics involved in setting up and dismantling the festival, nor the cooling systems to keep food and drinks cold. “Other types of emissions, such as noise, pollution and light, have not been taken into account in this study”, the report reads.
“We don’t want the end of Tomorrowland,” said Collinet. “Some of us have already been or would like to go again, and we’d like the festival to live another 10 years. But with a trajectory like this, it’s unlikely that will be the case.”
Air travel by artists accounted for 1.73% of emissions.The 178,000 festival-goers traveling by car accounted for 4.62% of the carbon footprint, while the 82,000 traveling by train accounted for just 0.28% of the total.
2. Solutions
In its report, Tapio proposes a number of solutions to improve Tomorrowland’s carbon footprint. Some of them are:
- An end to the sale of coupled festival/plane tickets;
- Offering more vegetarian or vegan meals, explaining the advantages of these options;
- Increasing the number of tickets available for the festival’s neighboring regions, thereby reducing the need to travel;
- Organizing more car pooling;
- Pooling transport and goods deliveries for the various food-trucks;
- Powering stages via solar panels;
- Banning the use of single-use products that are difficult to recycle;
- Creating partnerships with local producers.
Debby Wilmsen, Tomorrowland’s spokesperson, told RTBF that the festival would be commissioning a carbon audit of this year’s edition. This assessment will be carried out by an external agency and should be “finished by the end of the year”. “We really want to see what we can do better in the future,” Wilmsen said.
Given that the “Global Journey Package”, which includes a plane ticket, is the most successful, it remains to be seen how Brussels Airlines and Tomorrowland will react to the proposals offered by Tapio.
