NorthSide becomes a 100% organic festival

The festival’s latest sustainability report shows great results and promises to deliver a 100% organic selection of food

The work to construct NorthSide 2016 started with a goal of putting together an exciting and varied music line-up that would ensure the visitors to the three-day-long festival a great time. But it also started with goals concerning organic products, waste management, and new projects, which were created to move NorthSide even closer to the goal of becoming a totally sustainable festival.

An evaluation of the work is now presented in a new report prepared in collaboration with the festival partner on sustainability, Worldperfect, and the non-profit organisation Organic Denmark.

Selected results:
– 95% organic food / 74% organic beverages

– 76% of all waste was sorted for reuse (154 tonnes) – the target was 60%

– All volunteers were given a refillable water bottle

– 48% sustainable food packaging across stalls

– 1.67 tonnes of food collected and donated to shelters by the Food Bank

– 94% of the guests associate NorthSide with sustainability

The last point is on level compared to NS15, but more interestingly an impressive 87% of all guests find it important that NorthSide works with sustainability.

In addition, NorthSide still runs the country’s most advanced deposit system that ensures separation into 15 different factions that all trigger payment on return.

In March 2017, NorthSide won both the Sustainability and the MPI’s Outstanding Achievement Award handed out at the Danish Events & Meetings Awards (DEMA17) for achievements in the field of sustainability. Last year, NorthSide was also one of only five festivals nominated for a Green Operations Award during the European Festival Award. NorthSide also kept the sustainability certification from A Greener Festival Award – an award that has only been awarded to a single Danish festival besides NorthSide (Arla Food Fest).

Targets for NorthSide 2017:
– 100% organic food across the entire festival

– 85% organic beverages at the festival

– 80% sorting of all waste

– 60% sustainable food packaging

– Extension of last year’s refugee project in collaboration with the Municipality of Aarhus, which hopefully will provide 30 refugees the possibility to become volunteers at NorthSide

– A new plastic circuit project carried out by Worldperfect and supported by the Danish Environmental Protection Agency, wherein beer mugs and other discarded plastic products are converted into new packaging materials that can be used at NorthSide 2018

It is the second time NorthSide gathers results and evaluations in a comprehensive sustainability report, which is subsequently made public.

Find this year’s sustainability report at NorthSide.dk.