Help us save the planet, one festival at a time – We’re looking for volunteers who are full of energy, passionate about the environment and enjoy engaging with people about green issues.

If you would like to register your interest to volunteer, please email gmessengers@festivalrepublic.com and we will let you know when applications for 2024 open.

The Reading Eco Campsite is back again! The Eco Campsite is for like-minded people who want to make a difference: You live life with the planet in mind, and want to stay in a clean, green field for a festival you’ll remember.

To stay in the Eco Camp every guest has to sign up to the following principles:

1. 1. All guests agree to respect their fellow campers: Be inclusive and curious, talk about what is important to you, and enjoy the festival together.
2. All guests agree to respect the environment by protecting biodiversity and avoiding littering: Separate your recyclable materials, use the toilets provided, and don’t cause excess waste.
3. All guests agree to leave the campsite exactly as they found it: Everyone here has joined the call, take your tent home, and show the way forward.

Create Your Future. Stay in the Reading Eco Campsite in 2024. BOOK YOUR READING ECO CAMP TICKET HERE SOON – CHECK BACK.

Music Festivals have an impact on the environment because of the transport taken, energy they use, waste generated, water use as well as the food and drink consumed. The Show Must Go On Report 2020 shows that the biggest impacts are travel, energy and waste.

As set out in our Sustainability Charter we have a responsibility to preserve the live music experience for generations to come and the opportunity to use our platform to inspire global environmental action.

We have signed up to the Vision 2025 pledge and are working towards a 50% reduction in event related greenhouse gas emissions by 2025 (from 2014 levels).

We worked very closely with Julie’s Bicycle while they ran the environmental impact report. In their last reporting season, 2019, we were very pleased to be have been awarded 5 out of 5 stars.

We are also proud to be one of the Vision: 2025 Festival’s committed to reducing our carbon emissions. You can read more about the Vision: 2025 pledge here.

Please see our Festival Charter here, which details our commitments to Environmental Sustainability and a number of other areas.

Travelling to the festival makes up at least 80% of a festival’s carbon footprint (Source: The Show Must Go On Report, 2020 [https://www.vision2025.org.uk/the-show-must-go-on/]). To help reduce the Reading travel carbon footprint, you could travel by lower carbon forms of travel such as coach, train with direct shuttle buses to the festival, or carshare to help reduce this.

See below for low carbon options, and our Travel page for all options here.

BIG GREEN COACH

Big Green Coach are back as official travel partner to Reading 2023 and this year, all services are carbon neutral!

Take the hassle out of planning your journey and get dropped inside the festival gates, no one gets you closer. They are running Weekend and Day Return services from more than 35 pick-up locations.

Weekend Services:

Choose to arrive Wednesday, Thursday or Friday and they’ll get you home on Monday morning (feeling super fresh).

Day Returns:

Just heading in for the day? Big Green Coach will drop you at the gates before music starts and won’t leave until the action is over. Party hard and sleep all the way home! Forget hotels, trains, and shuttle buses. Leave the car at home and forget being designated driver.

TRAIN

It is really easy to get to Reading by train. Reading train station is a 15-20 minute walk from the festival site. There are many routes from throughout the country to the station, including from London Paddington.

CAR SHARE

Car sharing is a fun, easy, cheap and sustainable way to travel! If you’re traveling to the festival by car, sign up to Reading Liftshare here to offer your empty seats or look for a lift!

Liftshare Priority Parking at Reading Festival

To park in the Liftshare priority parking area at Reading you will need to:
A) Be in a Liftshare team, in the Reading Liftshare community.
B) Be sharing your vehicle with someone not from your household.
C) Print and display your Liftshare permit in your vehicle when entering the gate and when parked.

When in a team, you can access your permit from the Teams & Permits section at the top of your Liftshare account. For more details of How to form a Liftshare team and access your permit, go to the FAQs from the bottom menu on Liftshare.com and search ‘Permit’.

Reading side stage experience – Prize draw

To thank you for using Liftshare, and taking cars off the road, Reading Festival are offering a side stage experience to a lucky winner.

To be in with a chance of winning, send your name, email address and contact number to amy@mobilityways.com by 10am 22nd August. You must be in a Reading Liftshare team to enter. One person will be drawn at random and contacted on 23rd August to make arrangements.

You will need to meet a Reading member of staff at the festival to arrange which band you can see side-stage (please note not all bands allow people side stage). For full T&Cs visit: www.festivalrepublic.com/prize-promotion-tcs

We have committed to reducing our carbon emissions by 50% by 2030. Most of our on-site emissions come from how we power the festival.

We use a percentage of HVO (Hydrotreated vegetable oil) in line with our emission reduction targets which emits up to 90% less Greenhouse Gas emissions.

Click here for more.

We have put the following in place to reduce single use plastic at Reading Festival:

– All our cups are paper, and we have had a deposit return scheme in place since 2007,

– We have Pepsi Max bars that avoid plastic bottles completely, serving your drink straight into a paper cup and offering refills,

– All our soft drinks are made from at least 50% recycled plastic

– All our water is served in cans

– Plastic cutlery and straws have been banned since 2009, and only compostable food containers are allowed, – Bulk condiment bottles must be used by our food vendors instead of single-use sachets.

Please refill your water bottles at the taps provided. Please bring a refillable bottle with you to refill.

View a list of everything you can and can’t bring, here.

We run a three-bin system at the festival, which means every bin station in the campsite and Main Arena will be formed by 3 bins:

We have Recycling Stations in the campsite where you can recycle just like you do at home – with separate pods for recycling and non recycling.

COMPOST – When you buy food from the traders, everything your food comes in is compostable so plates, cutlery and napkins can be placed in the compost bins along with the food scraps. Please make sure no plastic goes into the compost.

RECYCLE – Plastic bottles, aluminium cans, newspapers, magazines and clean and dry cardboard (no used greasy pizza boxes as these do not recycle).

NOT RECYCLABLE For anything else. There should be minimal left that is not recyclable.

Head over to the campsite Recycling Points to collect green recycling bags. Fill them up with cans and bottles, bring them back and you can be in for a chance to win some amazing prizes.

Say no to single-use and reuse your tent. Buy a durable tent that you can use again each year, it will save you money in the long run – see our ultimate guide to buying a tent here.

Only bring what you can take home with you. When packing ready for the festival weekend, remember to pack wisely and only bring essential items. See our essential packing guide here.

Pink Moon offer pre-pitched tents or if you’re bringing your own tent we ask you to take it home, along with any other camping equipment.Did you know that tents are the equivalent of 8,750 plastic straws, or 250 pint cups. Say no to single use, take your tent home!

The reality is that abandoned tents are sent to energy from waste because it is impossible to recycle or reuse them. If you have any broken tents chairs, gazebos, empty batteries, unopened tins of food after the festival, please take them to the Recycling Points.

Every cup, can and bottle sold in the arena has a 10p deposit included in the price. Collect 5 and take them to our cup recycling stations for some cold hard cash.

Minimum deposit return = £1.

We coordinate a salvage operation after the festival for organisations to collect some of the perfectly reusable camping equipment that is left behind therefore reducing the amount of waste that goes to energy from waste.

This is an opportunity for charities and community groups to come to the festival site on the Monday after the show and help save what they can. Please email salvagers@festivalrepublic.com to register your interest.