After five years and numerous challenges, the Green Europe Experience (GEX) can present its final methodology for circular events. The project helps music festivals and the cultural sectors tackle the challenge of becoming more sustainable by creating, testing and assessing sustainable production practices promoting circular economy and evaluation models, replicable for other European music festivals. All the while providing professionals with adequate skills and competencies.  

GEX consisted of a 5-year “living lab”, put in place by 4 European music festivals and 2 NGOs, that was:

• built around 2 main topics: sustainable scenography and food, 
• structured in 3 phases : reflection, experimentation and evaluation, 
• implementing a number of methodologies: Learning-by-doing, Peer Learning and Mentoring.

This is what the project team did to implement projects and practices promoting circular economy:

• Establishing charters: they gave general guidelines on how the projects were to be produced, which each stakeholder involved had to follow;
• Launching calls for projects, aligned with the charters: it enabled to diversify the actors the festivals work with and to expand their ecosystems, all the while raising awareness of more sustainable practices;
• Supporting stakeholders in carrying out their projects through workshops, tools, mentoring or support by specialized professionals;
• Assessing the results quantitatively and qualitatively, and communicating around the projects.

The GEX project team was made up of YOUROPE members Boom Festival (PT), Pohoda Festival (SK), We Love Green (FR), A Greener Future (AGF) as well as YOUROPE’s think tank GO Group and former YOUROPE member Dour Festival (BE).

During the experimentation phase, each festival developed a specific scenography or food project:

• Boom introduced a “Know Your Food Charter” to help festival-goers make conscious choice on the food they chose to eat, and adapted new scenography projects to the circular guidelines established with GEX.
• Dour only participated in the scenography side of GEX, with the construction of two relaxation and seating areas for festival-goers by external project holders.
• Pohoda added a bicycle and information stand, created by a student. Regarding food, the festival created a new farm zone, a cluster of food stalls focusing on healthy and local food.
• We Love Green raised awareness of sustainable food among its ecosystem through measures on the offer and awareness-raising tools (workshops, signage, etc.). The festival built with students sorting bins and a resting area.

GO Group & A Greener Future helped to develop tools and supervised ideation workshops. In addition, A Greener Future assessed the results of the experimentation phase, and GO Group was in charge of B2B communication.

Recently, GEX published their final results in the form of a handbook called methodology. It’s the summary and conclusions of 5 years of experimentation, explaining the various projects implemented during GEX and the different analyses that emerged from them using the reports and assessments made by the partners. 

It aims to reveal key success factors, areas to watch out, for any event that would like to implement circular economy models in its food and scenography departments.

The final methodology is intended for Institutions, private or public organizations, associations, companies, individual persons involved in organizing an event – cultural, sporting, trade show… – and willing to get to grips with these issues.

Green Europe Experience Handbook

GEX Food Charter

GEX Scenography Charter

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This project has been funded with support from the European Commission.
This publication reflects the views only of Green Europe Experience, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.