Perth Fashion Festival & Sustainability.

Many of the reasons why other events should consider sustainability are stated in previous posts. Sustainability can bring value to the brand, contribute to market growth, allow for the preservation of licenses to operate, brings in enhanced brand reputation, customer attraction and retention are just a few of the positive impacts stated in earlier posts. 

 A personal predication is that over a period of time, heavy taxes will be imposed on those festivals that do not have a sustainability guideline, which could turn out to be an unnecessary costly expense for the organizers.

Although they are festivals that follow sustainability practices, many do not. Below are suggestions of how Perth Fashion Festival in 2012 onwards can begin to employ some of these practices, following the footsteps of what is done by the Glastonbury Festival.

The Perth Fashion Festival is considered to be Western Australia’s largest annual premier fashion event, done through a program of dynamic, interactive, creative and popular fashion events. The festivals mission is to celebrate, nurture and promote all aspects of Western Australian fashion and style (PerthFashionFestival, 2011).

After a chat with the event organizers, it was realized that very little, if almost no sustainable practices are employed within this festival, other then a little icon on all emails, asking the receiver to consider the environment before printing. Recycling bins are also provided around the office to encourage recycling.

The organizers feel that not only do they not have the resources needed to employ this practices, but also it is also not a major focus. The following suggestions which will not impose too much on the resources or cost or standard of the event.

Gift bags:

The festival provides gift bags to its attendees, with sponsored products such as cosmetics. These bags are either tote bags or paper gift bags.

This can be made sustainable, by handing out tote bags made out of vegetable dye that can still be just as attractive and serve its purpose.

Festival Brochure/Guides

This can be printed out on recycled paper, using vegetable dyes. The cost of this would be approx.$264 for 500 pieces of 6 page DL brochure (Print Together n.d.), cheaper than the $330 it would cost using non recycled paper and inks (Edge Creative n.d.).

Food Stalls:

Similar to the Glastonbury Festival, all food stall owners should make sure that the cutlery they use is FSC assured wood, made from compostable materials.

Recycling:

-       Separate bins for recycling and one for rubbish.

-       Having taps around the area to refill water, as well as encouraging attendees to bring reusable water bottles to refill instead of buying water.

Transport:

Collaborating with Transperth to provide free transport/discounted tickets to those who present their Fashion Festival Ticket as an incentive to reduce carbon emissions.

Research from AGreenerFestival.com indicates that 74% of the respondents said that they “would travel by public transport to a festival if it was provided as part of the ticket price.”