At Glastonbury Festival we are passionate about improving the world we live in. We want to make the Festival as sustainable as we can and aim to be frugal with resources, minimise our impact on our environment and commit towards improving the wellbeing and welfare of all who work at and come to enjoy the Festival.
Our work so far:
Care of our environment.
- Drinking water in our reservoirs is heavily monitored and quality-tested twice a day during the Festival and in its preceding weeks.
- During the Festival and in the weeks that follow, Glastonbury Festival carries out continuous monitoring of the water in the rivers and watercourses that run through the site to ensure that the water quality remains high for the welfare of local wildlife.
- The Festival monitor the health of local ecology year-round, and control the risk of damage to local ecosystems.
- Teams of litter pickers work throughout the Festival and afterwards, hand-collecting litter.
- Since 2000, Glastonbury Festival has planted over 10,000 native trees and hedge plants to support and enhance the local environment.
- Glastonbury works hard to protect vulnerable habitats, ponds, streams, hedges and ditches, by creating nature reserves and non-public zones.
Promotion of sustainable practices.
- The Festival only uses Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) or appropriately certified building timber. At the end of its use, unusable wood is chipped and used around the farm.
- All coffee, tea and drinking chocolate sold on site must be Fair Trade, and sugar must be either Fair Trade or British.
- Fish must be Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) certified.
- Charcoal and wood must be British or Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified.
- All milk sold through traders at Glastonbury Festival must be purchased from the on-site wholesale milk supplier to reduce transport miles.
- All food service disposables/serve ware – including straws and hot drink lids – must be made from paper, card, wood or leaves and be fully compostable.
- Traders are not permitted to bring or use single-use sachets of sugar, sauces, salt, pepper or milk pods.
- All official Glastonbury Festival bags are 100% organic, unbleached natural cotton, printed with Azo Free water based inks.
- Our official Glastonbury Festival T-shirts are 100% organic cotton, certified by GOTS.
- The dyes used in the manufacture of the T-shirts are all reactive dyes, which are the kindest to the environment for use in commercial garment manufacturing.
What you can do:
- Please use the toilets provided. Urinating on the land or in the rivers contaminates the local water supply, killing wildlife and seriously compromises the future of the festival.
- Please use our waste and recycling bins. It is not okay to drop litter on the ground. Help us look after our environment by placing your waste into the correct recycling bins.
- Please dispose of cigarette butts responsibly. If they are thrown on the land, they leach chemicals into the soil and local water supplies.
- For campfires, please only burn the wood provided. Do not take wood from the trees and hedges. Not only will green wood not burn well, but taking it disrupts habitats.
- Please use water responsibly. Turn off taps and help us use water efficiently.
- Please only use biodegradable body glitter. Conventional glitter is a microplastic pollutant.