Whereas the title of the “world’s greenest music competition” could also be not possible to find out with complete accuracy, Norway’s long-running Øya is as shut because it will get. The Competition — which has featured Kanye West, Kendrick Lamar, Robyn, Lana Del Rey, the Remedy and tons of of Norwegian acts because it launched in 1999 — has been named an “Excellent” honoree by the worldwide non-profit A Greener Competition 9 out of the final 10 years the awards have been held, and is licensed as an “Environmental Lighthouse” by the Norwegian basis of the identical identify. In 2010, it even acquired an honorary award from Norway’s minister of agriculture for its work in selling natural meals. 

This yr’s competition, held over 4 blissfully sun-kissed days in August, featured top-shelf acts like Gorillaz, Florence & the Machine, Nick Cave and H.E.R. alongside homegrown expertise like Aurora, Dagny (pictured above) and Lady in Crimson — however its inexperienced efforts have been arguably much more spectacular.

Øya — Norwegian for “island,” in honor of its authentic location on Kalvøya — is now held in Tøyenparken, a sprawling hillside park in central Oslo simply accessible by public transportation and bicycle, and inside strolling distance of town middle: Organizers estimate that 98% of its 22,000 every day attendees journey to the occasion by these strategies. The competition itself makes use of roughly 50% zero-emission vehicles for its artist and inner transport, and is aiming to have an emission-free web site throughout the subsequent few years. Its energy comes not from turbines utilizing fossil gasoline, like many festivals, however reasonably from town’s energy grid. The hillside location creates a pure amphitheater for its a number of levels, eliminating the necessity for seating.

The competition has a fabric recycling fee of round 75% — receptacles for trash, recycling and compost are in all places — the meals is 95% natural, and roughly half of it’s plant-based, with simply 20% of the gadgets together with meat (which is way much less climate-friendly to supply). All meals packaging is compostable and was biogas after the occasion, and all non-water drinks are served in reusable cups for a 20 Krone payment (about $2). The competition’s rubbish is hand-sorted on-site into 15 completely different classes, and greater than 60% of the waste is reused for brand spanking new merchandise. Øya even publishes an environmental handbook for festivals and out of doors occasions, and is without doubt one of the builders of the Inexperienced Producers Device, which measures and helps scale back emissions for the leisure and occasion industries and launches later this month.

It additionally innovates new concepts with every competition: A number of years in the past, Øya experimented with bowls and utensils that have been truly edible — conjuring visions of situations like “Can I please have one other fork? I ate mine” — however did away with the follow as a result of they have been 4 instances as heavy as compostable ones and thus required extra power to move and course of.

Whereas American occasions like Bonnaroo and Lightning in a Bottle have been acknowledged by A Greener Competition up to now — and Stay Nation not too long ago introduced plans to institute recyclable bottles at its occasions and venues — there’s no query that North American festivals are far behind their European counterparts when it comes to sustainability. To an American, Øya — and Norway itself, with its clear streets, environment friendly public transportation and ubiquitous recycling receptacles and electric-car charging stations — is sort of a glimpse by way of green-colored glasses at a society with out climate-change denial or special-interest-funded politicians who insist that fossil fuels nonetheless make sense in our burning world.

 “I feel you’re having tradition shock!” jokes Mia Frogner, Øya’s head of sustainability and meals, to Selection. “Now we have to maintain this park as a result of it’s an city web site that individuals use all yr — nevertheless it’s additionally the precise factor to do, and an built-in a part of what we need to be,” she continues extra significantly. “I feel we’re the one competition in Norway that has an individual devoted to sustainable initiatives, however we don’t do it simply to pat ourselves on the again — we need to encourage not solely different festivals, however different companies and the viewers, of their properties and jobs.”

Requested concerning the typically daunting prices of recycling, Frogner says inexperienced insurance policies are so deeply built-in into the competition’s budgeting and manufacturing that they’re nearly not possible to itemize. “It’s one thing we’ve determined we need to pay for,” she says, “however a whole lot of the initiatives truly finance themselves, just like the [reusable] plastic cups. The payment for the cups is used for the washing, distribution and logistics of all of it. We attempt to make the environmentally sustainable initiatives as self-funded as doable.”

Øya makes use of reusable merchandise and supplies as typically as is possible, and has an intensive storage system for that gear. It additionally works to reuse supplies each inside and out of doors the competition, changing frying oil into gasoline, espresso grounds into cleaning soap, and banners and tablecloths into cushion covers and different ornamental gadgets. It’s even calculated the typical local weather emission for each meal offered on the competition.

“All partnerships, contractors, meals distributors, sponsors — everybody has to abide by our environmental tips,” Frogner says. “They’re a part of each contract we signal.”

Øya is certainly one of a number of main festivals in Norway — which additionally embody Bergenfest, Inferno, Stavern, and the awesomely titled Tons of Rock — and dozens throughout Europe, and it’s a pacesetter within the discipline. “Relating to sustainable objectives and environmental points, I feel Norway’s festivals have been on the middle of the dialog, and many individuals come to them for recommendation on these points,” says Kathrine Synnes Finnskog, CEO of Music Norway, a government-funded personal basis with a mandate to lift the worldwide profile of the nation’s music. “Most individuals in Norway are conscious that we reside in a really privileged nation, so we’ve got an obligation with regards to how you can maintain the world. However we additionally know that our governmental funding comes [largely] from the oil trade, so it’s a really advanced subject.”

Certainly, Norway’s wealth expanded exponentially with the invention of North Sea oil within the Sixties, and proof of that largesse is outstanding all through Oslo. However mixed with the nation’s longstanding welfare-state traditions, that wealth has created an enlightened angle towards sustainability that’s comparatively frequent in Europe however nearly unheard-of in the USA.

“The oil cash is comparatively current — my grandparents didn’t have it of their lives as a result of the trade wasn’t developed as it’s at the moment,” Frogner says. “So we’re a really nature-oriented nation. Norway is generally forests and water, and I feel dwelling in it on daily basis reminds us that we have to maintain it: Now we have a whole lot of water energy and wind energy, and we’re conscious of the necessity to transition away from fossil gasoline. I feel there’s a mindset that if we have been in a position to do it with fossil fuels, we will be as progressive with different kinds of power — we will take all of that information and competence and all of these extremely certified folks and firms, and put it towards how we will we be extra sustainable in power manufacturing.

“We take a look at ourselves as a testing floor for what can be completed,” she concludes. “We’ve calculated that [at capacity], Øya is Norway’s fifteenth or sixteenth greatest metropolis. So if one thing works right here, it may well work in all places.”