Being the largest international series festival in Europe, our role of welcoming up to 72,000 festival-goers, guests and professionals, and offering 8 days of exclusive series premieres, panel discussions and meeting opportunities is our main motivation at Series Mania, with an ambition to grow each year. Our goal is to continue to expand and engage more people with Series Mania, without turning a blind eye to the impact of a Festival of our scale on the planet.
Our Carbon footprint is one of the main focal points for Series Mania in terms of our environmental impact. By conducting the Festival’s first Carbon Footprint for the August 2021 edition, we have been able to educate ourselves on this issue, raise awareness among our partners, and identify our main sources of emissions, so that we can act now to reduce our carbon footprint.
As part of this analysis we have identified three key steps to scale back our carbon emissions and become a more sustainable festival.
our process
Accompanied by the sustainable development consulting firm ekodev, six volunteers from the Festival team were educated on the festival’s energy and climate issues. The Bilan Carbone methodology was presented to them so that they could collect precise data for several weeks to feed into this assessment; from the reading of electricity meters to the origin of the red carpet, from guest accommodation to the number of programs printed.
From this first report, Series Mania wanted to take into account all of the greenhouse gas emissions produced during the event. This is why we decided to extend the data accounting to Scope 3, the most extensive and the only measuring process that is truly significant according to the experts. It includes, in addition to the emissions directly generated by the festival, those produced indirectly, such as the travel of participants, including their means of transport, the production of waste on the festival site, its recycling and purchases made for the event.
Releasing our Carbon Report 2021 is the first step to committing ourselves to a process of continuous progress. It is a starting point for a more responsible festival and we are committed to working in this more sustainable direction while continuing to make the city of Lille and the Hauts-de-France region come alive each year to the rhythm of series.
2021, OUR STARTING POINT
22kg of CO2e / per festival-goer in 2021
out of 55,000 participants over 8 days – which is equivalent to 0.08 trees / per festival-goer, or about 5 hectares of trees to be planted to compensate for all our CO2e emissions.
And what’s in it?
56%
Inputs
equipment, supplies, goodies, red carpet, signage
43%
Participants’ travel
represent 99% of the festival’s emissions. The remaining 1% corresponds to other consumption (electricity, digital, waste…).
2022, OUR COMMITMENTS FOR THE FUTURE
So now, what?
We want to put our energy where it will have the most positive impact, to mitigate our greenhouse gas emissions without delay.
That’s why we’ve identified three priority areas to focus on :
1/ Offsetting and rationalizing air travel
- Starting this year : implementation of compensation actions, ideally initiated in the Hauts-de-France region. We are still looking for the most suitable solution for a Ffestival of our size. We will publish it here as soon as we’ve found and launched it.
- 2023 : implementation of incentives for professionals to encourage low environmental impact transportation when they travel to Lille. In the long-term, compensate for air travel if no other options are available.
2/ Rethink, reduce, recycle inputs
- 2022 : think and act more eco-responsibly, invest in reusable materials and banish single-use plastic, and source more locally (materials and staff) as soon as we can the purchases or productions we initiate.
- Reinforce the eco-responsible actions put in place in 2021:
More hybrid or electric vehicles for the transportation of guests.
Green electricity supply with high environmental value
for the Village Festival by Crédit Mutuel.
Suppression or dematerialization of most of our
communication materials and ticketing (estimated impact :
more than one million pages of paper not printed).
Continue to eliminate plastic at the festival
by using glass carafes, bottles and biodegradable cups.
3/ Include festival goers and professionals in our approach
- Publication of an eco-responsible manifesto in the festival venues to engage participants in our approach.
- Selective sorting garbage cans, reusable cups, dematerialization of tickets, etc. We want to provide the tools to change habits, so that everyone at his or her own level can contribute to reducing the carbon footprint of Series Mania Festival.