Last year, The Conscious Festival returned to its roots in Singapore for its seventh edition. We went virtual in 2020, hybrid in 2021, and in-person in 2022, with a physical event in Paris and a pop-up in London. In 2023, we returned to where it all began, Singapore. Here’s the full, uncensored, 411 on our sustainability report for The Conscious Festival 2023.
We’re not perfect, and well aware of it. Yet we make sure to do our best when it comes to our sustainability journey and to be transparent. Organising a festival requires significant effort, a fact we know all too well from our eight years of doing them, and planning festivals with a focus on sustainability and consciousness raises the complexity even further.
Achieving sustainability is a continuous process, and while we don’t consider ourselves the foremost experts, we make every effort to reduce our environmental impact and footprint wherever and whenever possible. To monitor our progress, we compile an annual sustainability report.
Here’s how we did…
Our carbon impact is meticulously calculated
Thanks to our decarbonisation partner, Unravel Carbon, we could calculate the carbon impact we had. Over the three days, we made sure to take note of what would emit significantly. This included travel (between cities in Europe and Asia to Singapore), logistics and electricity, and material consumption. In total, The Conscious Festival 2023 emitted 34.5 tCO2e.
According to Unravel Carbon, our emissions were already relatively low, thanks to our efforts in mitigating much of the event’s emissions. For example, we lowered our emissions by renting furniture and other equipment. This was also largely thanks to our eco-design partner reXtore, as we did not buy stands; instead, they provided reusable walls made out of rice hay, and the sticker printing was able to be recycled after the event. Furthermore, our expenditures on purchased goods and services were significantly lower compared to other events. This was largely because, instead of buying and serving food ourselves, we offered options for our attendees to purchase their meals.
By the way, were you at any of our workshops last year? If you were, you’d have definitely seen and used wooden pallets, which were both decorations and part of our floor seating. Those were actually borrowed from Singapore-based party collective Ice Cream Sundays! Same with all the other fun beanbags, carpets, rugs, pillows, and decor pieces you might have seen in the workshop areas; those were all borrowed.
All our emissions are in scope 3
But first, what is scope 3? Scope 3 emissions are those not made directly by a company or from its owned assets but come from other activities it indirectly causes within its supply chain. This includes emissions from buying, using, and disposing of products from suppliers.
So, yes! In short, all of our emissions fall under Scope 3, as we didn’t utilise any owned assets, placing them beyond our direct control.
Speaking of, the majority of the emissions came from corporate travel
This was mainly air travel for our speakers and a few core team members. Our total emissions for business travel was 30 tCO2e, which was 86.8% of our scope 3 emissions. Also, this already includes land travel and hotel stays.
Since the majority of accommodations were in five-star hotels, it’s important to note that more luxurious hotels tend to have higher emissions. This increase is due to factors such as larger room sizes and amenities that consume more energy, such as more frequent linen changes, water features the hotel has, luxury spa facilities, etc.
Yet some of this was mitigated due to our incredible hotel partner PARKROYAL COLLECTION Pickering – arguably Singapore’s greenest hotel (if you are visiting Singapore or looking to have a green-staycation this is our top pick!).
This landmark hotel is well-known for its stunning design and superb service, as well as its dedication to sustainability. One of the most notable aspects is the hotel’s ‘hotel-in-a-garden’ design, which incorporates lush sky gardens, reflecting ponds, waterfalls, and vast greenery. The building’s façade is designed to maximise natural lighting while minimising heat gain, reducing the need for artificial lighting and air conditioning. One of the coolest parts about PARKROYAL COLLECTION Pickering is that despite their extensive water features, they also implement water conservation measures, such as rainwater harvesting, to sustain their verdant landscapes.
Our 2023 efforts
First off, we’d like to extend a big thank you to VEGANBURG, Ahimsa Cafe, Curated Culture, Crust, and TTG Wines for their sponsorship on the inaugural day of our festival, the Conscious Leaders Bootcamp. Their support was pivotal as we embarked on our mission to ensure the entire three-day event was fully plant-based. Additionally, Curated Culture took a step further by serving their drinks in glass bottles throughout the three days, which were then collected post-event for reuse.
Over the course of the three days, MUUSE, our reusable partner, equipped festival attendees with reusable containers, cups, cutlery, and more, ensuring that single-use items were eliminated throughout the event.
Using sensors to track the refills from Ayer Fountains x Nikoi Island, which were found all around South Beach during the festival, it was estimated that more than 600 single-use plastic bottles were diverted from Singapore’s waste stream in less than 3 days. Now that’s a pretty amazing feat, and we’re proud of everyone who made sure to bring their own reusable bottles (or borrowed cups from MUUSE) to make sure that there were no single-use plastic drinks!
As per Ayer Ayer’s findings, the manufacturing of 600 single-use water bottles contributes to carbon emissions ranging from 40 to 60 kilogrammes of CO2. Additionally, the production process requires 2 to 4 litres of water to yield just 1 litre of bottled water. Moreover, it’s noteworthy that half of the global expenditure on bottled water each year could be redirected to fund projects ensuring access to safe drinking water for hundreds of millions of people in need.
Did you know that we had composting bins provided by ECOSAMI?
Our compost partner, ECOSAMI, placed CIMBY containers (which is short for Composting-In-My-Backyard) next to the MUUSE collection bins to collect all food and coffee waste. In the two days, ECOSAMI collected 15 kg of waste. This might surprise you, as only 2 kg of the 15 were from food (sauces, noodles, tacos, and coffee grounds), and the rest were home compostable materials, which were mainly sugarcane sauce cups.
We had a trash art installation that went on throughout the entire festival!
In the lead-up to The Conscious Festival 2023, we partnered with TheConsciousLizzy to encourage our combined followers to collect and save their black and yellow trash. We invited everyone to bring their collected items to the festival, where they were incorporated into a live art installation!
It was a fun labour of love as festival goers (yes, even kids!) joined Elizabeth to help her create the installation.
In Elizabeth’s words, “GAME OVER” challenges us to rethink our relationship with the environment. It asks us to consider the consequences of our actions and to take responsibility for the world we inhabit. It is a plea to pause the game we’re playing with the Earth, where the stakes are higher than ever before. The title, “GAME OVER,” serves as a warning: unless we change our course, we may reach a point of no return.
We’re also proud to say that…
We’re carbon negative through our impact partners Rainforest Trust and Cloud Forest! Last year, The Conscious Festival was gamified for the very first time. Festival attendees had the opportunity to earn real trees, which were protected on their behalf from deforestation, by participating in various activities throughout the event. The more they engaged, learned, and interacted, the more trees they earned to build up their own forest. Participants unlocked rewards along the way and stood a chance to win grand prizes if they built the biggest forest.
The gamification at The Conscious Festival resulted in the protection of over 1000 trees in total.
But, we’re definitely still learning
At Green Is The New Black, we firmly believe that sustainability is an ongoing journey. Even after our tenth edition of this endeavour, it remains an evolving process. As we wrap up this sustainability report, we ask for your opinion. If you attended the Conscious Festival 2023, connect with us on Instagram at @theconsciousfestival or shoot us an email at holla@greenisthenewblack.com. We value your thoughts on areas we can enhance in the future. What improvements do you suggest, and what would you like to witness at the upcoming Conscious Festivals? Your feedback will be instrumental in shaping our future events to be even more significant, better, and more sustainable.
See you at the next The Conscious Festival, coming very soon!