Sunrise Festival goes solar to create the greenest weekend yet

Tipis at the Sunrise Festival: a sign of good things to come

As this year’s summer festivals line up to be greener than the next, one pioneering event has just taken a step further – by teaming up with renewable energy charity SolarAid.

The Sunrise Festival makes its claim to be the first major UK music fest to go really green – bringing in compost toilets and powering itself 100% with renewable energy.

This week Sunrise organisers announced a new partnership with SolarAid a new charity that helps poor communities in developing countries use solar power to fight poverty and climate change. SolarAid carries out microsolar projects – training solar entrepreneurs to build and sell small solar lanterns, radios and solar chargers for mobile phones – and macrosolar projects, such as installing solar panels on schools and health clinics in Africa.

“We are really pleased to be working in partnership with Sunrise Celebration this year,” said Nick Sireau, director of SolarAid. “Sunrise and SolarAid are both focused on promoting renewable energy to fight climate change and global poverty so there are some excellent synergies to build on.”

Daniel Hurring, from Sunrise production company Festivalife Ltd, said the partnership made sense. “Presently we use biodiesel alongside solar, cycle and wind power at the Sunrise Festival, but we are looking at phasing this out, starting this year with the firefly solar stage which is the largest of its kind in the country. We are thrilled to be teaming up with SolarAid whose ethics are very much in line with our own.

“Solar power is a low cost solution to many of the global power issues and certainly is a solution at Sunrise, which is like setting up a small town in a fortnight, and is a great example of how we can all occupy the land with minimal impact and waste,” Hurring added.

New Consumer magazines will be available on site at the Sunrise Festival, which takes place from May 29 – June 1. Our May issue will be distributed by the festival’s Eco Rangers, whose task is to enlighten festival-goers with all sorts of ways to go greener.

For more information, visit www.sunrisecelebration.com or call 0845 0096347