Measuring is knowing is the program where Into The Great Wide Open brings its own footprint into focus. This is an essential step in the pursuit of a circular and climate-positive festival and world. Necessary to measure progress and adjust where needed. 

For this, Lab Vlieland developed in collaboration with Greendeal Circular Festivals, Utrecht University, The Revolution Foundation, Royal Haskoning DHV and ITGWO the ‘Green Deal Circular Festivals Monitor’, a new festival monitor for climate emissions and material use. This advanced GDCF monitor accurately visualizes the festival footprint and is specifically built by and for festivals. It is currently used by about 30 festivals in Europe.

Furthermore, Into The Great Wide Open uses a cashless payment system, which besides convenience and no more festival coins, also greatly facilitates and makes the collection and analysis of sales data much more accurate.

Measuring is actually not really knowing

When monitoring, it is important to realize that it is actually not about measuring - in most cases, CO2e is not measured - but more about estimated calculations. Data is collected from practice, and based on that data, calculations are made by multiplying it with emission factors for certain products, activities, and fuels. These emission factors indicate how much CO2e a liter of diesel emits when you pump, refine, transport, and burn it in your car. If you multiply this number by the number of liters of diesel you consume to drive to Harlingen Haven, you will approximately know how much CO2e you emitted on your trip to ITGWO. This is how climate emission calculations work. It also makes it clear that it greatly matters how accurate the emission factors are and how good the data is that is used for multiplication.

The better the data and the emission factors, the better the approximation of the climate footprint. So when you fill out the visitor survey later, don’t forget to mention the exact number of kilometers of your trip and the mode of transport you used to get here.

REPORTING

From last year, we now have a good idea of what the footprint looks like. To visualize this in an Into The Great Wide Open way, we created an infographic. This shows the status after the 2024 edition.

In 2025 we will continue to measure as we have done in the past years with the GDCF monitor, with which we will create a report after the festival that we will share here on this page.