Sustainability
Caroline Davis, Executive Producer
As the Executive Producer of Birmingham Light Festival responsible for the resourcing of our inaugural event - and other events in the city region - I am aware of the pressing need for sustainability within the events industry. Our sector faces significant challenges in minimising environmental impact whilst delivering memorable experiences and trying to nudge audiences into more positive behaviour patterns, too.
The events industry - and humanity - must address issues such as waste generation, energy consumption, and carbon emissions to the best of our ability. Traditional event practices often lead to substantial waste and environmental degradation, conflicting with global sustainability efforts and Light Festivals require power, by their very nature.
The United Nations' 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a comprehensive framework for addressing global challenges; Goals such as SDG 12, which focuses on ensuring sustainable consumption and production patterns, are particularly relevant. By aligning our practices with these goals, we contribute to a broader movement towards sustainability.
Birmingham Light Festival's Commitment to Sustainability
At Birmingham Light Festival, we are dedicated to integrating sustainable practices into our operations. For the 2025 edition, we have implemented several initiatives:
Energy Efficiency: Our installations utilise energy-efficient LED lighting to reduce power consumption. Twist and Shine is powered by reusable batteries. Our generator is using hydrotreated-vegetable oil (HVO- this is being more widely used across events as a greener alternative to diesel and reduces carbon dioxide emissions by up to 90%¹. Our first choice is to always use land-power wherever possible.
Purchasing for Longevity: We are looking at what we order and how we can reuse this at others in, we always look at what we can hire, borrow or reuse before we start purchasing.
Public Engagement: We encourage attendees to use public transportation and have designed the festival layout to promote walking between installations, reducing the event's overall carbon footprint. 2 of the pieces are at train stations giving people a real reason to travel by train.
Food sustainability and Waste: encouraging people to use venues limits our need for food trucks and single use plastics
Future Sustainability Plans
Looking ahead, we plan to:
Reduced Energy Consumption: Explore the use of renewable or alternatively powered energy sources to power our installations or indeed look at installations that require no power at all. There’s some beautiful small pieces that work on the reflection of light sources already in place that we hope to make happen!
Sustainable Materials: Commission artworks that incorporate recycled or sustainable materials - this will be one of our call outs and good work is happening with bamboo, seaweed and other natural materials that we are interested to look at the interplay of light with.
Community Collaboration: Work closely with local communities and businesses to promote sustainable practices and raise awareness about environmental issues. We have expressly included positive artworks that highlight wellbeing, get people moving and bring in an element of nature (Mycelium Network) which we will continue into future editions of the festival. The content of future festivals will also look at climate injustice to provoke further conversations around consumption habits.
For our 2026 edition we have plans to explore travel partnerships with a view to promoting sustainable travel offers to festivalgoers. Please watch this space - and also look at what great evening offers there might already be for you to travel in by public transport this year.
OPUS are well embedded in Birmingham, our team are all from Birmingham and our freelance network is very local with people based in the city and Coventry - we are committed to continue providing these opportunities for local companies and freelancers. All of our core team are women and more than three quarters of the freelance contracts are also to women. Our key suppliers are all regionally based promoting sustainability and we work with as many arts organisations as we can to promote social sustainability, too. Investing in more Birmingham made work will be a core component of this and we are looking forward to continuing those conversations.
By embracing these strategies, Birmingham Light Festival aims to set a benchmark for sustainability in the events industry, demonstrating that it is possible to create captivating experiences while safeguarding our planet for future generations.
You can read Birmingham Light Festival’s Sustainability Policy here.
¹ Statistics and eco benefits of HVO fuel - https://www.aggreko.com/en-gb/products/generators/hvo