Glastonbury: Inside the Festival's Eco Energy Revolution

As global climate change continues to present the biggest threat to our planet, one of the world’s largest festivals is playing its part in ensuring its operations are as environmentally-conscious as possible.

Glastonbury Festival, hosted at Worthy Farm in England at the end of June, is committed to reducing greenhouse emissions and using clean energy sources whenever possible.

Its work so far focuses around these key areas:

• Incentivising green travel
• Prioritising clean energy
• Improving infrastructure to cut down on transport emissions

Glastonbury: One of the world’s greenest festivals

In 2023, Glastonbury proudly announced that all of its power needs would be — and subsequently, were — met by renewable energy and renewable fuels, entirely eliminating the need for fossil fuels to power the festival.

This was no mean feat, and was the culmination of the festival’s long standing eco mission: since the festival was established in 1970, sustainability and respect for the environment has always been at the heart of its operations.

Since 1984, Glastonbury’s Green Fields — promoted as the beating heart of Glastonbury Festival that is an ever-present sanctuary from the hustle of the remaining festival bustle — has always run on solar, wind and pedal power. 

Speaking to Access All Areas, festival Co-Organiser Emily Eavis said: “Being able to power the entire festival without having to rely on fossil fuels has been a real breakthrough, but it is the culmination of lots of baby steps that have seen us steadily increase our use of renewable energy – both from the grid as well as from our own onsite sources like our solar PV array on our cowshed roof and our anaerobic digester that turns waste cow manure into biogas. 

“We’ve been trialling alternative and renewable fuels for over a decade and, after some successful trials with virgin, palm oil-free renewable HVO at the last couple of festivals, we decided to use it — in place of fossil oil-based fuel — in all our generators.”

Glastonbury 2023 ran on 100% fossil fuel-free sources

The last iteration of Glastonbury, in 2023, saw all production areas either powered by electricity from lower impact, fossil fuel-free sources or solar PV and battery hybrid systems.

All generators across the 900-acre festival site — including those that power the iconic Pyramid Stage — operated on sustainable, renewable palm oil-free HVO fuel from waste cooking oil.

This, Glastonbury said ahead of the record-breaking 2023 festival, helped reduce lifecycle CO2e emissions by up to 90%. 

Other Glastonbury fan favourites had a renewable energy refresh, with Arcadia’s giant fire-breathing spider running entirely off recycled biofuels. The festival also erected a temporary wind turbine in Williams Green to provide clean sustainable power to some market stalls, supported by clean energy from the festival’s solar PV array and anaerobic biogas plant, which provide energy for the Farm and Festival offices.

Other sustainability initiatives Glastonbury Festival supports

Glastonbury banned the sale of single-use plastic drinks bottles in 2019 and disposable vapes in 2023 to reduce waste and promote more sustainable alternatives,. Its own on-site recycling facility ensures waste is hand-separated for a single stream of recycling, avoiding the need to send waste to landfill.

This stellar effort has meant that, since 2019, more than 99% of all tents and camping equipment have been taken home after the festival.

With the Worthy Farm site spanning thousands of acres, Glastonbury reduces its on-site emissions further thanks to a small fleet of electric vehicles which transport artists around the site to their performances.

Michael Eavis, Co-Creator of Glastonbury Festival, said: “Glastonbury Festival was founded in 1970, long before people began to become concerned about climate change. Yet even then all the milk, the cider and the straw came from the farm. We were green then, and we are just as green now.

“As a festival we’ve always tried to take an ecologically thoughtful approach to the way we do things, which we always hoped would inspire people.

“We are striving to leave as little an imprint on the land here as we possibly can. For me, Worthy Farm is what life here is all about. We hope that we can continue to lead the charge in sustainable living by making Glastonbury Festival as green as we are able to and by spreading the word to Festival-goers about what will really make a difference to the environment.”

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