Reading & Leeds achieve green accolade

Reading Festival 2014

Friday 22nd to Sunday 24th August 2014
Little Johns Farm, Richfield Avenue, Reading, Berkshire, RG1 8EQ, England MAP
£205 - SOLD OUT

Daily capacity: 90,000

Festival organisers Festival Republic have announced that Reading & Leeds Festivals held over August bank holiday weekend have each achieved a three star Industry Green rating for the 2013 events, the highest possible achievement for Industry Green.

Reading & Leeds Festivals join only a small number of festivals in the UK to have ever achieved this rating. The Industry Green certification is the leading mark of achievement on environmental sustainability within the creative industries and is administered by Julie’s Bicycle, an independent, not for profit organisation.

The rating covers four criteria of commitment, understanding, improvement, and communication. In order to be certified, an organisation must at least have an active environmental policy in place and be measuring its key environmental impacts such as energy, waste, water usage and audience travel, which is then assessed by Julie’s Bicycle.

Reading Festival has maintained the three star rating first awarded for the 2012 event, while Leeds Festival has improved on last year’s grading to achieve the three star rating for the first time. In addition to this, stablemate Latitude has maintained three star ratings across three of the four assessment criteria: commitment, understanding and communication.

Festival Republic have for some time been committed to minimising the environmental impact of its festivals and works throughout the year to ensure that all their events are as environmentally sustainable as possible.

Sustainability initiatives implemented at Reading & Leeds have included encouraging attendees to cut costs and carbon emissions by sharing their car journeys to the festival; distributing Camper’s Waste Kits to festival goers to encourage recycling; minimising the amount of waste going to landfill by increasing composting and recycling; operating cup and water bottle deposit schemes; making the use of compostable food packaging mandatory for all food traders; increasing the use of biodiesel onsite and operating donation points for festival goers to donate unwanted unopened non-perishable food and unwanted camping gear at the end of the festivals.

These initiatives helped Reading & Leeds Festivals to achieve reductions in their total relative emissions from energy use, water use, sewerage and waste, with Reading Festival reducing emissions by 11% between 2012 - 2013 and by 26% since 2009.

Melvin Benn, Managing Director of Festival Republic, said, "I am proud and delighted that both Reading & Leeds Festivals have achieved three star Industry Green certification this year. Festival Republic takes sustainability very seriously and we are committed to minimising the environmental impact of all our festivals. We hope to build on our achievements this season, with the whole team working in conjunction with Julie’s Bicycle to make our 2014 events as green as possible."

Reading Festival takes place at Little Johns Farm, Richfield Avenue, Reading, Berkshire, and Leeds Festival takes place at Bramham Park, Leeds, West Yorkshire with both events happening over the weekend of Friday 22nd to Sunday 24th August 2014.

The line-up this year includes Arctic Monkeys, Blink 182, Queens Of The Stone Age, Paramore, Jake Bugg, Disclosure, Metronomy, Of Mice & Men, Wilkinson, The 1975, The Courteeners, You Me At Six, Sbtrkt, Warpaint, Netsky, Annie Mac, Architects, Pusha T, Krept & Konan, Royal Blood, Vampire Weekend, Enter Shikari, Macklemore & Ryan Lewis and Bombay Bicycle Club.

For the full details please see the Reading Festival line-ups page.

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Weekend tickets are on sale at the price of £205, plus booking fees, and postage fees will apply per order. Campervan tickets are also on sale priced at £60. Day tickets Friday, Saturday, Sunday £92.50 plus booking fee.

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