About

The Hove Festival, launched in 2007 and held yearly in June, is a festival for all people believing that combining the best artists with on-site camping, nature, beaches, water and idyllic surroundings form the ultimate festival experience. The initiative came across because we felt that Norway had many good city-based festivals but lacked one where participants can experience great music in natural surrroundings. We started this festival because we believe that important and beautiful things can happen when people get together to have a good time. The Hove Festivalmixes big international acts with Norwegian bands in a unique setting on an island off Arendal city. Five days filled with the bands you love, and the ones you've never heard before, but will learn to love. Besides the music,we shareexperiences from the quirkiest art scenes, watching yet-to-be-released movies and eating delicious ecological food.

The Hove Festival sets new standards for environmental and sustainability awareness. Not only because we want to preserve the beautiful nature that surrounds the festival, but because we believe that a music festival can make for an interesting way to increase environmental awareness, both with our audience and our partners.

One of the key priorities of the sustainability profile of the Hove Festival is to neutralize the CO₂ emissions caused by our transport activities. This includes emissions caused by our artists and our audience’s travelling to Hove, as well as our own caused when preparing and organising the festival. We know that “carbon neutral” is a discussed concept, but easily put we believe in doing something instead of doing nothing.

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Strategy

The Hove Festival uses its magical universe and idyllic venue to increase awareness on environmental issues and sustainable development.To this purpose, it implements a strategy focused on reducing its carbon footprint, using available resources and protecting nature, by:

1. Promoting responsible behaviour regarding the venue’s beautiful nature and the protected areas nearby
2. Controlling what is introduced to the festival area
3. Managing the dismantling of the Festival equipment
4. Taking responsibility for the CO₂ emissions caused by the transport activities of the audience, the artists and the staff
5. Working with the best partners in order to achieve our strategy

We work systematically to map the impact we have on the environment and on how we can reduce it.We believe that a music festival is a unique moment to speak to peoples’ heart, when they meet in a setting of music, fun, joy and magic, away from the stress and concerns of daily life. And we believe this is an opportunity and obligation we should not miss! Our aim is that people leave the festival a little bit more aware and a little bit more inspired to make a difference, simply by showing it is possible to think and act differently. We show it is possible by working with the best partners for the best solutions – for example to showcase new low emissions technology and innovation.

How we do it:

The first year (2007) the Hove Festival calculated the carbon footprint of the transport activities generated by participants, artists and staff, as well as emissions from the ferries, busses, and renovation cars serving the festival site. The emissions of the staff transport for 2007 amounted to 5,5 t (not counting volunteers). 

In addition, the carbon footprint included emissions from the energy consumption at the site, including buildings, camping facilities and the aggregates for the stages. A carbon calculator based on the best available data (recommended by the Norwegian Ministry of the Environment) was made available on the Hove Festival’s website for the participants in order to facilitate awareness-raising and establish a dialogue with the participants on the issue of their CO₂ emissions.

In its second year (2008), the festival developed a special online registration system (www.co2-registrering.no) where sponsors, artists and staff committed to register their emissions and compensate them. This registration system is now used by the Canal Festival and Arendal commune, among others. For participants it was voluntarily and they had the possibility to register online too http://www.co2registrering.no/public/ and compensate by sms or credit cards. The funding went to a UN approved Clean Development Mechanism project on capturing methane gas from a junk yard in China and using it in a power station and Bellonas climate project capture and storage.

The 2008 edition of the Festival saw also the following projects implemented:

Wind and solar energy to light up the make-up table. A 40 foot long make-up table was lit by 21 LED spots that only used 3 watts each, which means that the whole range used just as much power as a regular 60 watt bulb. The electrical power came from a battery that was charged by a sun cell panel and a wind mill.

Solar cellular charging. Meeting points at the festival where the public was able to charge phones with solar energy, a project developed with a local company.

Solar bicycle charging. Together with a sponsor, Hove developed a solution for charging phones by cycling!

AFS as (Arendal Festival Supply as), Hove Festival, Canal Street, the Norwegian Grand Prix (powerboat championship) and Arendal established a festival company with fences, toilets, electric equipments, electric cars, etc. The primary target for Hove Festival is to eliminate its emissions by having zero transport distance for this equipment.

Freddy. This small organization was collecting used tents and t-shirts, recycling them and selling them again. The earnings went to a school for refugees from Burma, located in Thailand.

Hove hot dog Ecological hot dog produced in cooperation with Leiv Vidar with 72% meat.

Short traveled food. The Hove Festival focused on home made food served by local teams and associations. Food was short traveled, meaning it was produced locally and bought from local suppliers.

Environmentally-friendly bags. Hove and Canal Street gave away 1000 shopping bags made of fair-trade organic cotton, in cooperation with Arendal city that had a print on one of the sides. Twenty stores received 100 each for distribution.

Sun energy charging for mobile phones. A project developed in cooperation with the Southern Norway’s Technology Center, STS.

Cars. Several bran names like Ford, Saab, Go-Green, and Toyota gave green cars, as well as the Festival’s own 8 electrical golf cars.

Camping showers. An oil water heater reduces the fuel consumption by 67%, compared to electrical power produced to heat water. It was also running on maximum biodiesel mix. A thermal solar panel (Solarnor) was also used to heat water and reduce energy consumption further.

Power aggregate. The project was fuelled by 15 % biodiesel.

Bicycle rent. In cooperation with a local supplier.

Environment tent. The tent was set up as an information hotspot by partners, associations and us. Grid, FN-byen Arendal, and UNEP showcased their climate work. Bellona organized a climate quiz in the tent, that offered also a computer for CO₂ registration and t-shirts sold by Freddy.

Environmental debate. Torgny Amdam, leader of the band Amulet, chaired the debate that brought together Fredric Hauge, leader of Bellona, and Steinar Lem, leader of The Future in our hands. The Norwegian Minister of Culture Trond Giske, Inga Marte Torkildsen, politician and member of the oil environmental comity, as well as Morten Sandberg, director of Hove Festival, and the leader of the Canal Street festival Mads Aronsen took part. The artist Ida Marie and a representative from UNEP in Brussels participated through video conferencing. The debate had massive media coverage.

Wristband. Bellona and UNEP/GRID logo was on all the festival wristbands.

Trains campaign. To be included in the festivals section of the NSB's (Norway’s railway company) tourism website  http://www.nsb.no/festival/ Hove Festival was used as an example on NSB's homepage. Travel campaigns for bus and train at  www.hovefestivalen.no

Recycling targets for 2008. Increase recycling from 21% to 50% by implementing the following:

• Deposit: several deposit stands were set up on the festival and camping site for bottles, paper, pizza boxes and glass.
• Food for garbage: participants were able to trade a 100 liter waste bag for a meal.
• Recycling of plastic tumbler: deposit fee on plastic tumbler sold on festival area.
• Collection of used camping equipment: after the festival, approximately 400 camping chairs and 100 plastic covers were collected and stored.
• Environmental stations to grade the waste: all waste is manually graded from the festival and camping area in collaboration with the organization Nature and Youth. More than 700 waste buckets and several grade stations were set up at the venue.

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