People, environment, material
The honest story: the most sustainable option is to not organise a festival at all. But, of course, we don't want that. At the same time, we are aware that we have to treat the earth sparingly. To keep our impact on the environment as small as possible, we are constantly working to improve and innovate the festival. We do this, for example, by booking companies together with other festivals, so that only 1 flight is needed to Europe from another continent, by reusing materials, working together with local suppliers as much as possible, and much more. We tell you more about it on this page.
The approach - a brief overview
A festival like Noorderzon is actually a kind of village. For eleven days we use all the facilities available in a village; water, electricity, waste, food, drink and, of course, entertainment. That means a complex organisation, but also a village full of possibilities in which we can, and are, allowed to experiment. For example, in recent years we have always tried things out in the field of sustainability. We have stopped using single-use plastic, we use the leftovers from the previous day in dinner every day in backstage catering, we work with as few transport trips as possible, we have reusable crew shirts, etc. All things that contribute to the mission, but there is always room for improvement.
That is why we always ask ourselves: can this be done more sustainably? Is this the best solution or are there already better innovations? We teach ourselves to be critical and to use smart solutions. All with the mission: to produce a festival in a few years that is completely energy neutral.
Sustainability has grown into Noorderzon's broader 'view of life': care and attention for people, the environment and material. Environmental friendliness and a social volunteer policy, investing in the relationship with local residents. We are a learning organisation, not a scoring organisation. Just like our artistic policy, this policy moves along with developments in society.
How?
Of course, we don't do this alone, we do this together with our crew, our volunteers, our artists, our audience and our partners & suppliers.
Basically, we have a simple starting point: if it can be done locally, we do it. This means, for example, that more than 90% of our food & drink is provided by local companies. There is a lot of good stuff under the local sun! It also means that these companies are all committed to a sustainability statement. This statement concerns the use of (sustainable) disposable tableware and power consumption.
We improve every year, partly thanks to developments in society and science. For example, a few years ago it was unthinkable that the kilometres of ribbon lighting could be used sustainably. But it has now succeeded. This year we are working on making our transport and electricity more sustainable.
In addition, we use hard-cups at Noorderzon, coffee grounds are collected, we print less and the merchandise is made sustainably to deal with the planet in a responsible way. Noorderzon also encourages visitors to bring bottles that can be filled at various water taps throughout the park, installed by Waterbedrijf Groningen.
We also started a collaboration with European Festival Forest. An initiative that, together with festivals, wants to plant as many trees as possible to combat climate change. The trees are planted in Iceland by the Icelandic Forest Service. A tree can already be planted for €2. You can make a donation in the Noorderzon ticket shop during ticket sales. 30% of this donation goes to the European Festival Forest.
On the more 'soft' side, the so-called CSR (corporate social responsibility), we also have a number of great partners and a number of partners that change each year for (temporary) initiatives. Such as the Clubhouse for the Deaf Groningen, with which we also select performances for the festival that are suitable for the hearing impaired and/or the deaf to visit. Our inclusive volunteer policy is also important in this regard. And every year we offer a platform for initiatives that do not necessarily have art as a starting point, but social themes: such as debates about basic income or urban planning, collection for charities, social themes such as health, cohesion in the city, etc.
Regulations and rules
We naturally – and rightly so – have to comply with various regulations, laws and rules. This is, for example, the Handbook for events, but also the location profile Noorderplantsoen and General Local Bye-Laws, the municipal rules in the field of public order and safety. All this is summarised in our extensive permit application, which ultimately comes together in the permit for our event.
Additionally, the Quality Mark Foundation for the Environment, Safety and Quality (KMVK) has a handbook for public events. This can be viewed on their site. We commit to that, this means that we carry out what is prescribed, that we provide 'dry' evidence such as documentation of everything we publish to purchase invoices and that we are inspected annually on location during the festival by an inspector.
Greenkey
Noorderzon is the first public event in the Netherlands to receive the Green Key for annual public events in 2010. The first years were Silver level and we now have the 7th Green Key (2022) Gold level in our pocket.
Green Key is the international quality mark for organisations in the tourism and recreation industry and in the market for meeting and conference locations, which are seriously and verifiably engaged in sustainability, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), with care for the environment in their own organisation[- activities] and the nature in their surroundings. To qualify for Green Key, an organisation must take many measures with regard to environmental care and CSR. These measures are partly mandatory, partly optional. Green Key Netherlands has three levels: Bronze, Silver and Gold. The more optional measures, the higher the final result. We are inspected twice a year by an external inspector: once for Noorderzon and once during the festival. Noorderzon can proudly say that level gold has been achieved for quite a few years in a row.
Green Key is a means - not an end in itself - to focus on sustainability and to be able to visibly communicate and monitor this.
GROENN
GROENN stands for Groene Evenementen Noord-Nederland and is the brand-new platform for making events more sustainable, founded by Noorderzon and three other major organisations in Groningen: Paradigm, Bevrijdingsfestival Groningen and ESNS, and is supported by the Municipality of Groningen.
Our ideal is a future-proof world, starting in the Northern Netherlands, in which people, society, the environment and art go hand in hand. To realise this ambition, it is important that we join forces. We want to share our knowledge and experience with politicians, fellow organisers and with you.