DGTL Amsterdam, the two-day electronic music festival held on April 15 and 16, is announcing new plans to become the world’s first circular festival. Since its conception in 2012, sustainability has been an integral part of the festival’s program to increase visitors’ awareness of climate change.
In 2016, the organization chose to substantially reduce its carbon footprint by “going veggie”, announcing it would no longer serve meat. Furthermore; the entire festival is powered by green energy; plastic is recycled on-site to create new products; and even visitors’ urine is reclaimed to be used as garden fertilizer. These are but a few examples of the sustainability projects launched from DGTL’s ‘Revolution’ program. This year however, DGTL’s goal is not to raise awareness, but to send out a call to action; urging visitors to adopt a more sustainable lifestyle.
To help set this in motion, DGTL has partnered up with Next Nature Network to introduce “The ECO Coin”. The world’s first ecological currency. With this new digital currency, we plan to reward all visitors for their sustainable actions. By participating in one of the many Revolution projects or workshops, DGTL’s festivalgoers will now earn ECOs. In turn, their ECOs will unlock special rewards like free sustainable food, music-downloads, unique products, discounts and even access to the ‘TBA-secret area’.
ECOs can be earned at various parts of the festival, for instance at DGTL DOWNTOWN; a new area where several sustainability projects and art come together. At DOWNTOWN, DGTL envisions our near future in which waste is non-existent, a fully circular economy has been implemented, clean energy is generated locally and our food system has received a sustainable upgrade.
ECOs can also be obtained at “The Future of Food”, where Dutch food pioneers will serve some of the ingredients that could soon become part of our staple diet. At the Future of Food, DGTL forwards to the year 2050, when, so it is claimed, there will be insufficient agricultural lands to feed the entire world’s population. Here, DGTL offers visitors a taste of the adjusted, alternative, and entirely new foods which could become the mainstays of tomorrow’s mealtimes.
Simultaneous with the ECO Coin launch, DGTL will begin the indexation of all of its in- and outgoing resources. In the “Material Flow Index”, all plastic, cardboard, glass, organics, wood and metal will be indexed in order to keep track of whether all materials used for and on the festival will be processed sustainably. At the festival, visitors will find that “Resource Collection Points” (RCP’s) have replaced the waste bins, signalling the transition to a circular economy.
With its new course of action and the many sustainable initiatives, DGTL hopes to set an example for the fast-growing international festival industry. With expansions to Barcelona (since 2015) and the first DGTL São Paulo edition planned for May this year, the organisation has begun creating an international network of sustainable events. Altogether, DGTL’s sustainable call to action is set to reach hundreds of thousands of young people.