Mayor Ed Lee and San Francisco officials commended the recently-concluded Outside Lands festival’s efforts to ensure sustainability, park beautification and to support green jobs.
The Outside Lands festival has transformed Golden Gate park into a miniature city of its own for a weekend every August for the last seven years. Photo © Josh Withers/Outside Lands
BC Staff Report
Published: September, 2014
Mayor Ed Lee and San Francisco officials commended the recently-concluded Outside Lands festival’s efforts to ensure sustainability, park beautification and to support green jobs. As has been the case for seven years now, the festival transformed Golden Gate Park for one weekend in August into a miniature city of its own, serving as a mecca for lovers of music, art and food. With a strong focus on the environment, the festival aims to operate as sustainably as San Francisco itself.
“The Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival shows that San Francisco can host world class events while protecting our environment,” said Mayor Ed Lee. “Working closely with Another Planet Entertainment, we are making sure that the Outside Lands event is a sustainable one that supports green jobs, respects our neighborhoods and is an event that reflects our City values.”
Each year, the festival operates with a host of sustainable features:
• comprehensive zero waste setup
• an eco village with non-profit partners
• a bike valet
• recycling store
• biodiesel generators
• locally sourced food
• refillable water program
• textile recycling (newly added in 2014)
This year, Outside Lands partnered with the San Francisco Department of the Environment’s Textile Reuse and Recycling Initiative to make sure that leftover textiles get put to good use. After the festival, leftover shirts, sweaters and other items were collected and contributed to the local textile market so they could be reused and recycled, preventing waste and promoting local jobs. This important zero waste effort was managed in partnership with Clean Vibes, Recology and Goodwill.
“As an event producer, we hold ourselves to the highest environmental standards, and Outside Lands is no exception,” said Gregg Perloff, president and CEO of Another Planet Entertainment, the event’s long-time producer. “Innovation is important festivalwide and the recent addition of a textile recycling program is just one more way we are taking sustainability to the next level at Outside Lands.”
In fact, Outside Lands aims to leave Golden Gate Park—and the city itself—in a better condition than it found it. In addition to hosting its annual Outside Lands Ocean Beach cleanup, Another Planet Entertainment has coordinated with San Francisco Recreation and Park Department to conduct litter pick-up and park preservation efforts.
“We could not have a better partner than Another Planet,” said Phil Ginsburg, general manger of the Recreation and Park Department. “They fully believe in and embrace the local and sustainable ethos, as is clear by this latest effort.”
Perhaps the sustainable feature that attendees noticed most was San Francisco’s iconic zero waste bins. Like the City of San Francisco itself, Outside Lands has long celebrated a high landfill diversion rate (in 2013 the event sustained an 84 percent diversion rate). Event organizers once again hired Clean Vibes, an event-waste diversion company, to help the festival recycle and compost as much as possible.
This year, Clean Vibes hired graduates from the San Francisco Department of Environment’s green careers program, Environment Now, to supplement their recycling and composting efforts. “In San Francisco, zero waste and green jobs go hand-in-hand,” said Josh Arce, president of the San Francisco Environment Commission. “By hiring Environment Now staff to help maximize recycling and composting, the festival is getting closer to zero waste while supporting green jobs.”
“The Environment Now program helped me gain experience and skills to take on a leadership role promoting zero waste in my community,” said Jennifer McPike, Environment Now alumnae and current Zero Waste Contractor with Clean Vibes. “And it is exciting to be a part of an event committed to be a leader in sustainability.”
More than 70 different restaurants offered over 200 menu options to festival attendees, creating a mountain of waste that needed to be dealt with during and after the festival. Photo © Josh Withers/Outside Lands
The festival promoters aim to leave Golden Gate Park in better condition than they found it. Photo © Josh Withers/Outside Lands
