If you're serious about making your event more sustainable, certification and accreditation schemes offer a structured way to measure your progress, identify areas for improvement, and demonstrate your commitment to your audience. The UK has several well-established schemes, each with different focuses and requirements.
A Greener Festival Award
A Greener Festival is perhaps the best-known sustainability accreditation for events globally, and it's based right here in the UK. Founded in 2007, the organisation provides an independent assessment of festivals and events across twelve key areas: energy and climate, water, waste management, transport and travel, food and catering, sanitation, noise, communications, supply chain, nature and ecology, social responsibility, and innovation.
The assessment process involves a detailed questionnaire, supporting documentation, and an on-site audit during the event. Assessors evaluate your current performance and provide recommendations for improvement. Awards are given at three levels -- Outstanding, Highly Commended, and Commended -- based on overall performance.
The scheme is open to events of any size, from small community festivals to major international events. Costs vary depending on event size and complexity, but typically start from around £500 for smaller events. For that investment, you receive a thorough independent assessment, a detailed improvement report, and the right to use the A Greener Festival award logo in your marketing.
Notable UK festivals that have received the award include Shambala, Green Man, Boomtown, and Wilderness.
ISO 20121 -- Sustainable Events Management
ISO 20121 is the international standard for sustainable event management systems. It was developed in the lead-up to the London 2012 Olympics and provides a framework for integrating sustainability into all aspects of event planning and delivery.
Unlike the A Greener Festival Award, which assesses your environmental performance at a specific event, ISO 20121 certifies your management system -- the processes and procedures you have in place to identify, address, and improve your sustainability performance over time.
Achieving ISO 20121 certification requires implementing a sustainability management system, identifying your most significant environmental, social, and economic impacts, setting objectives and targets for improvement, monitoring your performance, and undergoing an external audit by an accredited certification body.
The standard is more suited to organisations that run regular events or manage venues, rather than one-off event organisers. The certification process is more involved and expensive than the A Greener Festival Award, typically costing several thousand pounds for the initial audit plus ongoing surveillance audits.
Major UK venues and organisations with ISO 20121 certification include the Manchester Arena, the NEC Group, and several local authorities.
Julie's Bicycle Creative Green Certification
Julie's Bicycle is a London-based charity that supports the creative industries in addressing the climate crisis. Their Creative Green certification programme is designed specifically for arts and cultural organisations, including event organisers, venues, and festivals.
The programme centres on using Julie's Bicycle's Creative Green Tools -- a free suite of carbon calculators that help you measure your energy use, travel emissions, water consumption, and waste. Organisations that report their environmental data and demonstrate a commitment to improvement can achieve Creative Green certification at one to three stars.
What makes Julie's Bicycle particularly valuable is the depth of sector-specific knowledge they bring. Their team understands the unique challenges of running events and can provide tailored advice that generic environmental consultants may lack. They also publish benchmarking data for the sector, so you can see how your performance compares to similar organisations.
Creative Green certification is free to apply for, though using the full range of support services may involve fees. The programme is funded by Arts Council England, which has made environmental reporting a condition of its National Portfolio Organisation funding.
Vision:2025 and the Show Must Go On Report
Vision:2025 is not a certification scheme as such, but a collective industry commitment. Launched by Powerful Thinking -- the UK festival industry's think-tank on energy and sustainability -- Vision:2025 brought together over 100 festivals committed to achieving significant carbon reductions.
The associated "Show Must Go On" report provides detailed guidance on measuring and reducing festival emissions, with a particular focus on energy. Signing up to Vision:2025 involves committing to measure your carbon footprint, set reduction targets, and share progress publicly.
Which scheme is right for your event?
For most UK event organisers, A Greener Festival is the most practical starting point. It's specifically designed for events, the cost is manageable, and the assessment process provides genuinely useful feedback. If you're a venue or organisation running multiple events, ISO 20121 offers a more comprehensive framework. If you're in the arts and cultural sector, Julie's Bicycle should be your first port of call.
Whatever scheme you choose, the act of measurement itself is valuable. You cannot improve what you don't measure, and these programmes all provide the tools and frameworks to understand your environmental impact clearly.
Alongside formal certification, small operational changes make a difference too. Using digital ticketing through platforms like Tickts eliminates paper waste, reduces postal emissions, and streamlines door management -- all contributing to a greener event without additional complexity.
