Sustainability
The Edinburgh Climate Festival aims to raise awareness about climate issues while encouraging the adoption of sustainable, eco-friendly lifestyles. By creating an inclusive and engaging space, the festival not only educates the public but also empowers individuals and communities to take meaningful action in response to the climate crisis. Our festival plays an important role in promoting sustainable living to a wide audience in Edinburgh as well as the wider festival & event sector, and we aim to always work on reducing the impact of our practices. We are committed to reducing our impact by reviewing our working group action plans, coming up with innovative ways to make change and setting goals for future festivals based on previous experience. We acknowledge that we still have a lot of progress to reach as well as many goals we hope to one day achieve, whilst recognising the limitations we have due to available resources and budget as a free community event.
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Sustainability Comitment
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The Edinburgh Climate Festival team is committed to supporting Scotland’s journey towards becoming net zero by 2045, in line with the Scottish Government’s climate targets. As a community-led event, we are actively working to reduce our carbon footprint and improve sustainability across all aspects of the festival. Within the resources available to us, we are taking meaningful steps to lower emissions, minimise waste, and promote environmentally responsible practices. We invite and encourage all stallholders, food vendors, performers, staff, volunteers, and festival attendees to join us in this effort - whether it’s by choosing sustainable materials, reducing single-use plastics, cycling or taking public transport, or simply being mindful of energy use. Every action contributes to a greener future. Together, we can celebrate climate action while building a more sustainable and resilient community.
You can read our full 2025 sustainability policy document here or scroll down to learn more about previous milestones:
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Stage powered by Reaction Bike Power: Sound system powered by bike generators, encouraging attendees to cycle and experience the impact of contributing to powering our event through their own actions. Further incentive was given through various prizes to the top 3 longest cycle times.
Bring your own container campaign: free raffle entry for attendees who brought their own containers, with prizes of £60, £50 and £40 vouchers for local sustainable & refill grocers.
Vegetarian & Vegan stalls: Providing lower carbon footprint food options & supporting local food vendors.
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Sustainably RISO printed posters in partnership with local printers: Ensuring our leafletting & advertising campaigns rely on eco-friendly practices when possible. Our team also reuse previous posters as notepads!
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Stage and decorations designed from repurposed sets: Working with Re-Set Scenery, a non-profit organisation dedicated to implementing circular economy in the theatre, film, and events industries. Re-purposing unwanted sets for our stage design and ensuring they don't contribute to landfill.
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Trialing a single use packaging fee: Collaborating with food vendors to trial implementing a take away container fee applied to all purchases that contribute to single use packaging waste.
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Offering sustainable travel subsidies to working group volunteers: Encouraging lower emission travel options such as walking, cycling and when needed public transport. Covering these public transportation costs to support volunteers travelling to our office space.
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Reference: ECF sustainability