Resources
How to build an ethical off-grid event
All the experience we have in creating a sustainable, low-impact festival, collated into one place for you to explore.
From the early Green Gatherings in the distant 1980's to the Big Green Gathering of the 90's and the recent years we've spent building a pioneering, award-winning event since moving to the Welsh borders in 2011... we've gained a gritty hands-on understanding of how to embed green principles and practices at the very core of our festival.
Now we want to share that experience, along with insights from the brilliant hive-mind of Green Gathering imagineers, in order to help others lessen the impact of their events too. Take a look below to find out more.
Our How Green page is packed with detail too.
Explore resources
Power
You can't power a festival with solar-energy in the UK, can you?
Yes, you really can. Here we want to offer some practical, technical insight and demystify the process of providing off-grid power, showing you what renewables are truly capable of.
Green Gathering Energy Audit 2023 (PDF)
Sustainable Power: Dream or Reality?
Travel
Travel remains one of the biggest challenges for event sustainability.
Travel accounts for around 90% of our festival’s carbon emissions. The links below break down how both organisers and festival goers can help - the key to tackling this really lies in everyone getting involved.
WASTE
Our unique, bespoke systems provide an educational resource as well as practical ways to manage and reduce waste.
Circularity Zeroes Waste at GG
Clean Stream Resource Centre - Guide to Waste Management (PDF)
Crock 'n' Rock - How to set up a reusable serveware system (PDF)
Ethical trading
Not just business as usual.
Our trading standards are incredibly high - but traders still love coming to our festival, and take our practices onwards in their festival season too. This creates real world change.
Accessibility
Sustainability applies to more than the environment, it requires inclusion and equity.
From offering assisted access to focusing on diversity on stage, these are the steps we take to make our festival accessible to all.
Going Beyond
How we aim to be 'sustainable' in all we do...
These links highlight our beliefs and ethos, and how we embed a culture of planet before profit.
Themes: Reconnect, Rise, Release, Recuperate
'Gather' - a spoken word piece about us and about hope
