Rob da Bank
Rob da Bank is a music broadcaster and tastemaker. He is one of the UK’s best-loved music curators, who first gained public attention with Sunday Best, a label and club night founded in London in 1995, which has grown into three multi-award
winning music festivals, Bestival, Camp Bestival and Common People. Rob also co-founded the award-winning Music Supervision and Licensing company Earworm Music, which sources music for films, advertising, games and TV shows, allowing him to further express his curatorial expertise and develop his writing and producing side as a film composer.
Sisley Beau
Sisley Beau, Founder of KICK Event and Academy. Student of the ROC in Amsterdam. My name is Sisley Beau, I’m 17 years old and live in Amsterdam. My roots are from the Moluccan Islands in Indonesia. Together with my brother we founded KICK Event. I love to sing, photograph and spend my time in researching sustainable fashion. My aim is to develop my skills in this all to contribute the better future.
Russell Blakey- Brand Ambassador
Russell has been working on the “Enviro-Cup” project for the past 4/5 months and is keen to ensure that people understand the benefits of “Enviro-Cup” and its impact on the Environment. Russell has been shocked by the recent press coverage about the damage caused to our Planet and Oceans by irresponsibly disposed of plastic and believes that we all have a part to play in improving the World in which we live. However, he also believes that time is of the essence in continuing to get the message across about A Greener Environment. Russell has an extensive background across manufacturing and professional services with a passion for making a difference. A Brummie born and bred and proud to promote anything connected with “The City of a Thousand Trades and Home to the Peaky Blinders”.
Shane Collins
Cllr Shane Collins. Director of the Green Gathering CIC, Leader of the Green Party group on Mendip District Council, long time green activist with past involvement with the anti roads protests, CoolTan Arts, Reclaim the Streets, Legalise Cannabis March and Festivals, Urban Green Fair, core participant in the current undercover police Public Inquiry, resident of Frome, Somerset.
Ed Cook
Ed has worked in the recycling business for over 15 years. As the Managing Director of Network Recycling he oversaw the clearance of more than 350 events across the UK over a 6-year period. Events included Glastonbury, Bestival, London 2012 Olympics, and Secret Garden Party. In the last five years, Ed has concentrated his efforts in waste consultancy where he leads resource efficiency projects aimed at increasing the value of waste and identifying intervention points in the materials value chain. Most recently he has been concentrating on international development projects involving the global plastics markets and also development of technology for use in low- and middle-income economies. Ed has an MSc in Waste and Resource Management from Cranfield University where he is also a guest lecturer on mechanical-biological treatment technology. He is a qualified PRINCE2 Practitioner, Chartered Waste Manager and holds a CPC in international Road Freight Haulage.
Chris Cooke
Chris is MD and Business Editor of CMU, a service provider to the music industry. Best known for its media – the CMU Daily, CMU Digest, CMU Trends and Setlist podcast – the CMU business also provides training and consultancy to music companies, runs the CMU:DIY education programme for new talent, and presents the CMU Insights conference at The Great Escape each May. CMU is part of Chris’s company 3CM UnLimited, through which he also publishes cultural recommendations service ThisWeek London and its sister magazine ThreeWeeks Edinburgh; and helps to run the award winning PR training charity the Taylor Bennett Foundation.
James Dowdell
James is a passionate surfer, keen adventurer, environmentalist and nature lover. He is a Director and Festival Campaign Manager of Raw Foundation – a campaigning organisation targeting disposable waste, especially plastic. Raw Foundation launched and published their first Plastic-Free Festival Guide in partnership with Kambe Events. The guide, showcased at the Green Events and Innovations Conference in 2014, has been adopted by influential festivals. Other publications include a Plastic-free Festival-Goer Guide, City, Beach, Lifestyle and Sector Guides for Bristol 2015, the National Trust, eXXpedition, CitytoSea and a WWF ‘Sustainable Tourism’ plan. Recently, Raw Foundation led a world’s first expedition (Raw in Africa) from Cairo to Cape Town, to track the world’s plastic footprint and shine a spotlight on the scale of transboundary plastic pollution. James is also the Client Campaigns Director at Project Dirt, a social enterprise that connects grassroots community activist groups with local organisations enabling them to achieve their goals.
Natalie Fee
Natalie is an award-winning environmental campaigner, and founder of City to Sea, a non-profit organisation running campaigns to stop plastic pollution at source. As a former London headhunter, Natalie ‘had it all’ by the age of 21… except happiness. So she gave up the fast-paced city life and headed off on a mission to discover what really makes us happy.. After experiencing a powerful call to protect the oceans, Natalie set up City to Sea, a non-profit organisation delivering local and national campaigns to raise awareness and provide solutions to plastic pollution.
Virginia Gardiner
Virginia is the original inventor of Loowatt toilet system. Prior to starting Loowatt in 2010, she spent 7 years working with award-winning product and design companies including Dwell Magazine, and wrote for publications including Metropolis and The New York Times. Virginia holds a joint Masters in Innovation Design Engineering from the Royal College of Arts and Imperial College London and a BA from Stanford University in Comparative Literature. About Loowatt: We create physical, emotional and environmental wellbeing through waterless sanitation. Wherever there is a need for non-sewered toilets, people deserve a clean, safe, and desirable experience. Chemical toilets, bucket toilets, and pit latrines are make do answers that just won’t do. Loowatt provides waterless flush toilets for homes and pop-up locations everywhere. Our future-proof, patented technology provides a high quality waterless flush that locks in odour and disease without using scarce and high-value water. Servicing our toilets is safe, simple and quick. We support a closed-loop system, where waste is hygienically contained for easy transport to treatment infrastructure. This stops disease spreading and supports resource recovery. Wherever we install toilets, we work with local partners including servicing companies and utilities to ensure closed-loop and value-generating sanitation solutions that meet the requirements of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 6.2). Loowatt Ltd. is a UK limited company that makes waterless flush toilets and sanitation solutions. Loowatt SARL, our Madagascar operations arm, has been serving household toilet customers since 2016.
Adam Hall
Adam Hall is the Head of Sustainability at Surfdome and the wider Internet Fusion Group, Europe’s largest action sports retailer. His youth in the rolling hills and gentle surf of the UK’s South West region shaped both his passion for surfing and an appreciation of the natural world — all of which has been enhanced by a lifetime of traveling. Adam has spent almost his entire working life weaving his way through every aspect of the surfing industry — a journey that has taken him from humble beginnings at the local surfboard factory to years spent traveling and living in Australia and New Zealand. After taking a break from the surf industry to found a company that aids businesses in becoming more sustainable, Adam is now relishing combining both his passions — as the Head of Sustainability in the surfing industry, where he is currently “greening” The SurfStitch Group by focusing on eliminating single use plastics in the company’s business operations. Under Adam’s leadership, Surfdome has already removed the equivalent plastic as 1.2 Million plastic bottles from its internal operations and is working to influence other companies to do the same, whilst supporting The Plastic Project and #2MinuteBeachClean. All delivered from a highly sustainable state of the art warehouse. Adam has a business degree from Exeter University and holds numerous environmental assessment qualifications. He’s happiest being in salty water — on top of, below and everything in between — in new far-flung places (with no marine litter!) with his young family.
Jane Healy
Jane has been working in festival/concert production for the past ten years, specialising in sustainable infrastructure and the application of sustainable technologies. Her main focus has been on sanitation management and looking into options to improve and advance that sector within the festival community. From compost toilets to ‘Pee Power’, she believes that helping to develop sustainable sanitation technologies will not only will benefit the event scene, but can also have an impact on the way sanitation is approached in developing countries. She has also worked with WaterAid to promote the importance of good sanitation and clean water. As Sanitation Manager at Glastonbury Festival between 2014 – 2017 she has been able to implement site-wide compost toilets. This was a first for Glastonbury and set a precedent for the festival industry with 1,111 compost toilets in use on one site. She was also in charge of the management of over 5,000 toilets during the event, grey water plumbing and general onsite liquid emptying logistics. From 2008- 2012 she was Production Manager for Sunrise Celebration, an award winning sustainable event.
Michal Kaščák
Michal Kaščák is a promoter, musician, composer and lyricist. At the age of thirteen, he as a leader of the band Bez ladu a skladu began to give concerts mostly in underground clubs of the communist Czechoslovakia. The New York Times included the band among the artists who contributed to the fall of the Iron Curtain. After the Velvet Revolution, the band started touring Europe and it fell apart in 1997. That same year Michal Kaščák started the Pohoda festival and has been acting as its director, curator, and booker. Pohoda is an art festival where alternative, indie, electronic, punk, and world music meets classical music, along with literature, dance, visual arts, film, NGO´s and theatre. The festival creates a unique space for meeting different cultures and world views; it is a celebration of freedom and tolerance. In addition to the festival, the Pohoda team organises also concerts and small festivals, such as the Doma Dobre Festival for people who are homeless. Pohoda festival is acitve member of Yourope and its initiatives such as Take a Stand and YES Group and recently won The Green Operation Award at European Festival Awards. Derek Robertson of Drowned in Sound wrote about Pohoda: “The organization is superb. Compared to UK festivals this is Utopia. In fact, it’s one of the most well-behaved festival crowds I have ever witnessed…”.
Jamie Kelsey Fry
Jamie Kelsey Fry is a contributing editor at New Internationalist, one of the original members of the Occupy movement and Reclaim The Power, a co founder of Talk Fracking, a regular news commentator and an advisor to the International Modern Media Institute in Iceland. The Daily Mail hates him often.
Dawn Kendall
Dawn Kendall, has over 10 years’ experience working and volunteering with the events and festival sector. Focusing mainly on community engagement and environmental education. She is a founding member of community organisation Envirolution which organises events, festivals and skill sharing across the UK. Dawn is now working as the Social and Environmental Sustainability Manager for Tuned in Travel.
Graham Macvoy
Graham began his events career planning and delivering pro-snowboard and extreme sports events in the Alps, and working with major brands such as Nike, Xbox and Oakley, before setting up GMC Events. GMC Events’ portfolio includes events of all sizes, from global sailing events to four-day music festivals, and city-centre arena shows, including Bestival, Standon Calling, British Summer Time and Rat Race Adventure Sports, to name a few.
Danilo Manuputty
Danilo Manuputty, Founder of KICK Event and Academy, student at the Media College in Amsterdam and soccer player at avv SWIFT. My name is Danilo Manuputty, I’m 13 years old and live in Amsterdam. I’m the founder of KICK (Keep It Clean Kids) and I want to explore the world together with you and with KICK and build a community that make the world a better place. Beside this I am a passionated soccer player with big dreams and big goals.
Adrian Mills
Adrian career has always been focussed on delivering water. Founder of Water Direct in 1999 which was initially established for providing services to the Water utilities in respect to contingency purposes. He then progressed to establishing Watermills In 2007 focussing on providing services to events and festivals. In 2009 Adrian was invited to help in the writing of the British Standard (BS 8551) for temporary water supply and infrastructure which was published in 2011. Adrian was fully engaged in the planning and delivery of temporary water supply for the 2012 Olympics which adopted BS8551 as the correct guidance. Adrian, is passionate about his subject and is committed to improving welfare and sanitation at festivals and events both in the UK and abroad.
Teresa Moore – Director at A Greener Festival
Teresa is a Director of A Greener Festival, and co- founder of the European sustainability think tank GO Europe. Formerly Head of Music and Event Management at Bucks New University, Teresa has undertaken many pieces of research into sustainability, live music and events. She published the findings of a Live Music Census of Bristol, UK (March 2016) with UK Music highlighting the economic and social contribution of grassroots music venues to local the economy. She has carried out a series of festival surveys focusing on audience attitudes to environmental issues at music events (2013, 2012 and 2008) with A Greener Festival and worked with Julie’s Bicycle researching “Audience Travel to One off Music Events” (2009). Teresa is Editor and contributor to the new Purple Guide for Event Organisers (2014). She is a co-author of “Learning in the Round Concepts and Contexts in Work Based Learning” (2013). She is currently undertaking a PhD in sustainability and event management focusing on pro environmental behaviour change.
Wicki Nielsen
Wicki is a Senior Certification Officer at the Soil Association and an Environmental Assessor for A Greener Festival. Having finished a degree in Environmental Management in 2013, with a focus on Forest Management, Wicki advanced within the industry and is now working with the Soil Association in their Forestry Team providing FSC® and PEFCTM certification to forests and companies. As part of this work Wicki manages certified companies in Asia, Pacific and the Americas and travels to assess these globally, from Qatar to Brazil, on their responsible purchasing and manufacturing procedures. She is also on course to become a Forest Management auditor, which will enable her to work with managed forests around the world, assisting them to comply with the requirements of responsible forestry in certification and beyond. As an Assessor for A Greener Festival, as well as over a decade of working in the music festival and events industry, Wicki has gained significant insight into the operations and resource usage at events. Wicki is uniquely placed to provide a bridge between sustainable forestry and how event organisers can ensure their creative productions aren’t costing the earth.
Iren De Pasquale, BUTTrFLY (UK)
While sunbathing on a pebble beach covered in cigarette butts, at a music festival in Croatia, Iren came up with this simple yet innovative answer to the issue of cigarette litter. In cooperation with Terracycle, this scheme also solves the problem of dealing with cigarette related waste. When she is not organising clothes swap parties or cooking surplus plant based food, Iren teaches sustainability workshops in schools and runs engagement and behavioural change community events.
Shane Pattipeilohy
Director TEDxYouth@Amersfoort and Ambassador KICK . My name is Shane Pattipeilohy (19) and proud ambassador of KICK. I am the youngest TEDx organiser who organised a TEDx in The Netherlands and who had the founders of KICK as my speakers.
Kate Rolfe
Representing Next Nature Network in the UK, Kate is all about bringing together people, organisations and ideas. With a degree in biological anthropology and a career in the arts, Kate sees first hand how human nature and culture are changing with new ways of thinking and being. Having produced events at institutions including the Natural History Museum and the National Gallery, she’ll now be bringing Next Nature ideas to UK workplaces, venues and festivals.
Marie Sabot: Director of WE LOVE GREEN and WE LOVE ART
As director of WE LOVE GREEN festival and associate director of WE LOVE ART, Marie Sabot has been making both the electronic and alternative music scenes buzz for the past 20 years. After studies in law and communications, she went on to work in production and scheduling for several Parisian venues like the Élysée Montmartre and the Divan du Monde, plus she organised huge secret parties with “Les Templiers”, worked on events management for multiple corporate agencies in Paris (Auditoire, Public Sytème, Lever de Rideau…), and even worked on the artistic direction for the Athens Olympic Games. In 2004, she founded WE LOVE ART, which in the space of 10 years, established itself as a major catalyst in the arts and cultural industries, with events like: over 50 WELOVE electronic music nights held in unique Parisian venues; closing parties for Monumenta at the Grand Palais since 2011; digital art installations as part of Nuit Blanche; and since 2013, THE PEACOCK SOCIETY festival that celebrates all things electro at the Parc Floral de Paris botanical gardens. At the same time, We Love Art has developed as an events agency, providing expertise consultancy, management and marketing services that are always one step ahead of the trends, dreaming up and staging made-to-measure ephemeral events for audacious brands and their audiences. Since 2011, with WE LOVE GREEN Paris (which saw 58,000 festivalgoers in 2017), she’s proven that a major event can work in harmony with the environment, and that a festival can also be a hub of innovative, eco-friendly initiatives and ideas.
Mikkel Sander
Mikkel Sander is trying to prove that 135.000 drunk youngsters can party for 8 days, without destroying the world. He is always looking for new methods, new partnerships and new ways to involve the festival participants and volunteers in reducing the festivals environmental impact and maximizing the positive social impact. Roskilde Festival has been Non-Profit since 1972 and donated +40 mio euro to charity, throughout the years. So a feeling of responsibility towards the surrounding world is very much a part of Roskilde Festival’s DNA and has a huge impact on how the festival is organized. Mikkel holds a Master’s degree in Sustainable Transition.
Holger Jan Schmidt
Holger Jan Schmidt is co-initiator and steering committee member of the pan-european think-tank GO Group (Green Operations Europe) and the anchorman for green issues of Yourope (the European Festival Association). He is board member of the German Sounds for Nature Foundation e.V., that focuses on sustainability related and environmental issues at events. Sounds for Nature released the first and most important guidelines to greening events in 2004 which were rereleased fully updated in June 2013. Schmidt pushed sustainability up on the live music industry’s agenda by promoting Europe’s leading conference for sustainability in the business, GreenEvents Europe, from 2010 to 2014. Holger Schmidt is one of the initiators of the international Take A Stand initiative and campaign for the (live) music sector, which was launched in 2017 to create a movement encouraging social cohesion in our society as well as promoting awareness and tolerance. Holger Jan Schmidt looks back at more than twenty years with Germany’s biggest admission-free festival RhEINKULTUR in Bonn with a daily audience of 160,000 being in leading position from 1998 till the festival’s last edition in 2011. Together with his colleagues he invented the ‘Green Rocks’-program that covered all sustainability and environmental issues of the festival, which was one of the greenest in Europe. Today Schmidt is one of Europe’s main networkers on festivals and sustainability as well as the booker for Das Fest in Karlsruhe, one of Germany’s major festivals with a capacity of 80,000 visitors per day. He holds a diploma in media economics from Rheinische Fachhochschule Cologne and is a lecturer for “Sustainable Festival- and Event management” at Hochschule Fresenius (University of Applied Science) in Cologne and Dusseldorf. Also he is an active musician himself.
Rob Scully
Longstanding industry troublemaker Rob Scully became “accidentally” involved in festivals and events over 20 years ago, helping to run the Croissant Neuf area at Glastonbury Festival – one of the longest established venues on the site and an area that is completely solar powered. Since then he has been involved in the site & production management of many other events (and still works at Glastonbury…). An Environmental Scientist by training, he likes to try and disrupt existing event practices through supporting the introduction of new sustainable initiatives & products and through using more efficient and environmentally friendly management methods. Rob is an Environmental Sustainability Advisor to a number of UK festivals and events and is Senior Assessor & Sustainability Consultant at A Greener Festival. For the last 2 years Rob has also run the UK and Ireland arm of ZAP Concepts, working closely with promoters, event managers and power supply companies to help festivals and events to increase the sustainability of their on-site power (and also save them money in the process…).
Christian Steele
Christian Steele is the Off-Site Operations manager for Tuned in Travel. Chris is responsible for transport planning, operator liaison and transport bookings. He works closely with the On-Site management team to ensure smooth and efficient delivery of services. Chris has extensive experience in the transport and events sector.
Laura van de Voort (NL)
Laura van de Voort is Event & Sustainability Manager with a lot of experience in the festival industry. She worked as Event Manager for festivals such as Extrema Outdoor, Solar Weekend Festival and Ticket for Tibet. Laura is currently co-organizer of Dutch Chili Fest. Her expertise is mainly taking sustainable measures on a strategic as well as a practical level. Since 2014, Laura is co-founder of Green Events Nederland and she shares her knowledge and expertise with other event organizers. Cooperation is the key value and Laura believes that only by cooperating, rather than competing, sustainable changes can be made. Since 2015, Green Events manages the Green Deal ‘Waste-free Festivals’, a Dutch collaboration of nine festivals, the government and the Foundation Nederland Schoon.
Liz Warwick
Liz is a sustainability consultant who advises on improving the performance and carbon footprint of productions, events and venues. She is also qualified in environmental design, construction and assessment of commercial buildings, and corporate environmental management systems. She works with Cambridge Live and the Cambridge Folk Festival on all green initiatives which has resulted in being awarded several A Greener Festival Awards including Outstanding in 2014 and Highly Commended in 2017, as well as the UK Festival Award 2016. She is a committee member of Powerful Thinking, contributing to the smart energy guide and has worked with Energy Revolution on its recent sustainable travel publication, as well as tools and calculations. She also advises large organisations such as Sony Pictures Entertainment, AMEX and the Ethical Property Foundation, on compliance and minimising energy. For Sony, this includes all their UK travel, offices, studios, and location filming, as well as providing advice on their corporate ISO 14001 environmental management system.
Bob Wilson
Bob Wilson heads up the events team at Greenpeace UK which he joined in 1991 the same year that Michael Eavis invited Greenpeace to take part in the Glastonbury festival. No stranger to festivals Bob was at the first ever Glastonbury and the other festivals emerging in the 70’s. Having scrambled his way through those heady days, sitting on top of lighting towers listening to Hendrix and The Grateful Dead, he emerged into a long career at Time Out magazine that included a spell as Managing Editor and Marketing Director. It was in this role that he ran the sponsorship programme and began to support Greenpeace who he said at the time appeared as the only organisation that he came across actually doing anything to ‘stop the rot.’ He joined Greenpeace to help them set up their network of active supporters that now exists across the country. Encouraging the festival community to get involved with the work of Greenpeace around the world remains his key mission.
Oliver Wilson
Director, The 10,000 HOURS Foundation UK. With a background as an independent club promoter for over 15 years in London and his native Manchester, specialising in electronic & live music events, then working as concert promoter for AEG Live at the O2 Arena and also Goldenvoice & Coachella Festival in Los Angeles, Oli now runs the UK outpost of The 10,000 Hours Foundation which aims to support local communities around electronic music festivals through organising volunteer projects for music fans.
Rob Wilson
Rob is Chief Toaster (CEO) at Toast Ale. We brew our award-winning beer using unsold loaves from bakeries and unused crusts from sandwich makers. With a slice of surplus fresh bread in every bottle and all our profits poured into the charity Feedback to fight food waste, Toast is the best thing since, well, you know… Toast Ale has had great success to date in the UK and already expanded to the USA, South Africa, Brazil and Iceland, with ambitions to grow to many other locations in coming months. We believe that if you want to change the world, you have to throw a better party than those destroying it. Prior to Toast Rob led Ashoka in the UK. Rob is an award winning serial social entrepreneur having founded a number of ventures over the years. He founded READ International in 2004; a Tanzanian student-volunteer-led development organisation which to date has provided over 1.5 million books to school children and created 100 school libraries. He co-founded Generation Change in 2012, a partnership of the UK’s leading youth social action organisations, helping 600,000 young people a year take positive action in their local communities. He also recently co-founded the youth-led campaign Undivided; a non-partisan campaign set up to get the best possible Brexit deal for young people. In 2011 he co-authored a book with his wife Nikki about social entrepreneurs in Africa called On the Up. Rob lives just outside London in Kent with his wife Nikki and their two very cheeky little boys Thomas and Matthew.