Sustainability Vision

We have a vision to be the most sustainable major performing arts festival in Australia.

For several years we have been working towards making Sydney Festival a more sustainable event, with both big wins and big challenges. For example, we no longer offer disposable plastic water bottles – instead we give artists and staff reusable metal water bottles.

Offsetting our carbon footprint remains a large task, however the 2020 Festival sees us take another serious step towards fully understanding our impact, and identifying ways to minimise our impact and maximise the positive environmental, social and economic legacies of Sydney Festival.

Meeting our vision

With an estimated audience of 450 000, over 50 venues with performances by over 800 artists from Australia and abroad, the impact of resource consumption, waste creation, transportation, and greenhouse gas emissions is considerable.

In collaboration with our artists, venues, suppliers, staff, crew, volunteers and, importantly, with our audience together we can meaningfully reduce our resource consumption, waste creation, and our greenhouse gas emissions, so that together we meet our vision for a truly Sustainable Sydney Festival.

We will be enlisting your help to reduce our impact because; we believe that together we really can make a difference.

To read our full vision of sustainability, download the PDF here.