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Wychwood launches ethical push

United Kingdom | | 15 May 2007

Wychwood Music Festival is aiming to position itself as one of the UK's most ethical weekends away, by partnering with some of the UK's biggest charities.

The three-day event, which takes place at Cheltenham Racecourse from the 1-3 June, will see headline performances from The Levellers, Fun Lovin Criminals and Afro Celt Sound System.

Other acts playing its third year include Badly Drawn Boy, Rodrigo Y Gabriela, Rory McLeod, Robyn Hitchcock and the Venus 3, Camera Obscura and many more, all performing over three stages.

On top of some great music, the festival is keen to provide an ethical and environment-friendly weekend, in keeping with its family focus.

An exclusive partnership with Friends of the Earth this year will see Wychwood working towards reducing the environmental impact of the festival and promoting the charity's 'Big Ask' campaign.

Eco-efforts already planned for the festival include low energy LED lights across the site and on stages, minimising generator use and encouraging food caterers to use recycled materials.

However, much depends on festival goers to help keep the festival green and so Wychwood Festival - along with many others around the UK - is appealing to visitors to play their part in reducing the environmental footprint.

Individual green measures that can make a difference include car sharing, using reusable nappies and taking advantage of the recycling facilities. Visit the official Wychwood Festival site for more HERE.

As well as the Friends Of The Earth partnership, organisers have announced they will also be working alongside Shelter and its Wall Of Shame campaign (the wall will also be present at Glastonbury's Left Field). It is hoped the actions of festival goers can help Shelter send a message to the government to provide an extra 20,000 social homes a year.

Wychwood Festival has also partnered with FRANK Water, who will be selling water onsite all weekend. With every 1 litre of FRANK Water that visitors buy, 200 litres of clean drinking water will be provided for some of the poorest communities at specific projects in India and Africa.

With Wychwood Festival one of the first festivals to kickstart the summer season, VF felt it important to highlight the efforts it's making in reducing its environmental festival. However, the festival is not alone and many others are doing their bit. Remember to do yours...

For more information on staying green at festivals visit A Greener Festival.org.

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Photographer: Bob Rose

Wychwood Music Festival 2007

Comments

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Pax777 Pax777
wrote on Tuesday 15 May :
Is it ever going to be possible to have environmentally friendly festivals? I can't see it. You go anywhere, even the smaller festivals and people are leaving their crap everywhere - even dropping fag butts means that a festival is doing some kind of damage. why don't people just admit that festivals aren't good for the environment and stop pretending they can be

wavevader
wrote on Friday 18 May :
You're never going to be able to hold an event like a festival which is going to be beneficial to the environment, the point is to make them as least harmful as possible. We can't just all sit at home with the lights off doing nothing, our responsibity is to make positive changes to our lives that reduce the effect on the environment, like the steps introduced by festivals such as Wychwood.