YearlyKos was great but I was disappointed at the lack of 'greeness' to the event.
A friend passed along all the steps being taken at this year's Burning Man, event.
For those of you who don't know Burning Man, it's a huge event of 25,000+ every August to the Black Rock desert in Nevada. After the event, you'd never know anything happened there.
Updated: TreeHugger radio on Burning Man greening plans
Tips below the fold...
- Publishing 56,000 11 x 17 green maps charting all green action at BM. These will be given out to all festival participants when they enter the festival.
2. Hosted a Green Open House at BM HQ pre-festival.
- Initiated festival composting and starting composting in SF BM office. Festival composting will pull green waste from the Cafe, Commissary, and 50-100 theme camps.
- Executed CFL project in Gerlach (the closest town to the festival, population 500 people) updating all town light bulbs from incandescent to compact fluorescents.
- Organized the Green Man Film Festival including 11th Hour film screening.
- Festival-wide power assessment and companion GHG inventory.
7. Reduced Man Complex power load by 50% while increasing the size of the Man Pavilion by 10%.
- Running 87% of generators on B100 (11,000 gallons) and remaining generators on B10. This does not include generators for festival participants.
- Civic information kiosks arrayed throughout the festival containing the Green Map and various green messaging factoids.
- Collaborated with the Burning Man Earth portal to message all festival green activities to Planet Earth.
- Inspired and catalyzed 100+ climate change art installations. Art budget increased by 40%. Art grant submissions up 40% this year.
- Created the Green Man Pavilions, two 200 ft. long, 40 ft. wide tents adjacent to the Man that will house 30+ installations messaging next generation environmental technology/ideas including wind turbines/EVs, interactive energy displays, carbon foot printing, product lifecycle, permaculture, etc. It is powered 100% by green electrons from solar and wind.
- 10+ large art installations that are powered by a shared solar array system.
- 100% renewable power for the Man Pavilion including a 30 kW solar array in the shape of the Navaho sun symbol and 5 kW from four different designs of wind turbines. The renewable power system will message state of energy collection on interactive computer screens at the festival and on Burning Man Earth.
- Cooling Man project increases offset portfolio from 210 tons in 2006 to +400 tons (as of 8/6/07) in 2007. The goal is to be the first carbon neutral city on the planet. The estimated CO2e footprint of BM is 27,000 tons, 95% of which originates from travel to the festival.
- Large scale, distributed green power sharing between participant camps.
- Launched BM environmental website and environmental blog.
- Created express lane in Center Cafe for customers with their own cups.
- Most media coverage relative to previous festivals. To date: CNET/NY Times, Business 2.0, Grist, Current TV, Grist.
20. Contest for two tix to BM sponsored by Current TV/treehugger. The best new idea to save the planet will win the two tixs.
21. Collaborated with Dropping Knowledge to message "what's your burning question" campaign.
- Comprehensive festival-wide recycling campaign.
- Biodiesel bus shuttle from Reno airport to the festival with stops at Wild Oates (for organic food) and local Reno supply stores stocked with green supplies.
24. Worked with Reno supply stores to stock festival appropriate green supplies for festival attendees.
- Deploying 1000 shared yellow bikes (funded by a generous burner) painted green with red flames. This gift will help create the highest per capita municipal bike use in the United States (1 bike per 20 people).
- Designing, installing, and gifting a 120 kW solar array in Gerlach, Nevada and a 60 kW solar array in Lovelock, Nevada. The 30 kW solar array from the festival will be redeployed post festival and also be gifted to Gerlach. This project is the marriage of social capital and venture capital to make available to low income populations renewable energy. It will generate $3 million of electricity over the next 20 years. The electricity will be delivered at virtually no cost to Gerlach/Lovelock residents. Over the next three years, +1 MW of solar will be gifted to Gerlach making it the first city in the US to create more energy than it uses from the Sun.
- Created the Green Man Speaks: Conversations Inspired by the Green Man Theme Symposium. Occurring over a 4 day period with 2 one hour lectures per day, this will bring together global thinkers to discuss creative, sustainable futures.
- Commissioned a festival-wide, multi-media environmental baseline assessment to be published in 2008.
- Organized staff field trip to Solar Living Institute.
- All evening lighting at the Man Pavilion will originate from LEDs and CFLs.
- Commissary will not use an incinerator but will recycle all waste. All plastic utensils are being replaced by corn-based cutlery.
32. + 50 theme camps are using biodiesel because BM negotiated with local vendors to lower entry barriers for biodiesel use.