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Yes, a festival produces waste, consumes energy and causes traffic. But what if all the people who spend four days on the Gurten spent this time individually, with all its ecological side effects? There is no clear evidence that a joint festival weekend is ultimately more sustainable than all its visitors spending time in private, consuming resources and causing emissions – but this would at least be our major goal. Sustainability is and has never been mere lip service for us, but every year we work towards an ever more sustainable festival experience. We think in cycles wherever possible and include all dependencies, so we don’t stop at the gates of our festival. And we are currently working on a life cycle assessment that includes the entire festival with all its departments and will publish the status quo and our goals annually in future and record our progress.

For several years now, we have been documenting all the key figures in the various sectors that we can use as a starting point: Food, infrastructure, transport, energy and much more. We are constantly endeavoring to make meaningful improvements and have already achieved numerous milestones: for example, we set an upper limit of 50% for meat dishes at the food stands, we were one of the first festivals in Europe to introduce reusable cups, the local production of approx. 50% of our electricity consumption is produced locally in an intelligent and very efficiently controlled generator network, we reuse different materials wherever possible and separate and recycle everything that is not used as residual waste for energy generation, we continue to promote the already very high proportion (92%) of visitors travelling to and from the festival by public transport, bicycle or on foot, we do not allow free goodies (sampling) on and around the festival site and much more.

Sustainability has a social dimension that is just as central to us as ecology. Every year, we build a temporary city on Bern’s local mountain that aims to exemplify what has always been one of the main ideas of music festivals, especially the first editions of the Gurtenfestival 40 years ago: to create a small utopia in which we all forget about everyday life for a few days. But like every city, we are also confronted with real problems that challenge this deliberately naïve wish. This makes the well-being of our visitors even more important to us. In addition to the traditional security team and the first-aid team, we operate an independent festival hotline and have a professional care team permanently on site to look after the safety and well-being of all visitors. And even though we are a commercial festival, we set limits on sponsorship where we do not recognize our values. This includes our long-standing renunciation of tobacco sponsorship. We also curate partners, appearances and activations in the area of sponsorship and attach great importance to a pleasant ambience, a nice atmosphere and an all-round attractive experience.

Nachhaltigkeit hat eine soziale Dimension, die für uns genauso zentral ist wie Ökologie. Wir errichten jedes Jahr eine temporäre Stadt auf dem Berner Hausberg, die vorleben möchte, was immer ein Hauptgedanke von Musikfestivals war, gerade auch von den ersten Ausgaben des Gurtenfestivals vor 40 Jahren: eine kleine Utopie ermöglichen, worin wir alle den Alltag für ein paar Tage vergessen. Doch wie jede Stadt sind auch wir mit realen Problemen konfrontiert, die diesen bewusst naiven Wunsch herausfordern. Umso mehr ist das Wohlbefinden unserer Besuchenden für uns ein Hauptanliegen. Wir betreiben über das klassische Sicherheitsteam und die Sanität hinaus eine unabhängige Festival-Hotline und haben ein Care Team permanent vor Ort, das sich um die Sicherheit und das Wohlbefinden aller Besuchenden kümmert. Und auch wenn wir ein kommerzielles Festival sind, setzen wir beim Sponsoring dort Grenzen, wo wir unsere Werte nicht wiederfinden. Dazu gehört der bereits langjährige Verzicht auf Tabaksponsoring. Weiter kuratieren wir auch im Bereich Sponsoring Partner*innen, Auftritte, Aktivierungen und legen Wert auf ein angenehmes Ambiente, eine schöne Atmosphäre und ein rundherum attraktives Erlebnis.