LUMO LIGHT FESTIVAL HAS A CARBON FOOTPRINT LIKE THE AVERAGE FINN

The car­bon foot­print of the three-day Lumo Light Fes­ti­val orga­nized in Oulu is 10,300 kg CO2e, which cor­re­sponds to the cli­mate emis­sions pro­duced by one Finn per year. Most of the emis­sions, 70% of the entire event’s car­bon foot­print, were accu­mu­lat­ed from the trav­el of light artists and trans­porta­tion of light art works. The light fes­ti­val’s car­bon foot­print in 2021 was cal­cu­lat­ed by Macon Oy. In 2022, the cal­cu­la­tion will also be devel­oped by ask­ing the event’s audi­ence about their trav­el meth­ods in Lumo’s vis­i­tor sur­vey.

The main emis­sions of the Lumo light fes­ti­val, like oth­er events, are caused by trav­el, i.e the trans­porta­tion of peo­ple and goods. Both artists and their works are brought to Lumo from abroad, which meant more than 7300 kg of CO2e car­bon diox­ide emis­sions in 2021. The trav­el of event vis­i­tors has not yet been tak­en into account in the cal­cu­la­tions.

“Focus­ing on the artists’ means of trav­el, trans­porta­tion of works and com­pen­sa­tion pos­si­bil­i­ties are the next step. In the future, the pub­lic will also be asked about their trav­el meth­ods. In our com­mu­ni­ca­tion, we also rec­om­mend to arrive at the event on foot, by bike or by bus, which can influ­ence emis­sions,” reflects Lumo’s pro­gram man­ag­er Jarkko Halunen.

Quite sur­pris­ing­ly, sec­ond on the list of emis­sion sources was adver­tis­ing and print­ed prod­ucts. The prod­ucts need­ed for mar­ket­ing and guid­ance made up 23% of the total emis­sions.

How­ev­er, the ener­gy con­sump­tion of light fes­ti­vals, which has been called into ques­tion in the cur­rent ener­gy cri­sis, seems to be low­er than expect­ed. Although Lumo is a light fes­ti­val, its car­bon foot­print com­prised of elec­tric­i­ty, heat­ing and fuel use is small, less than 5%. As a rule, the fes­ti­val uses car­bon-neu­tral elec­tric­i­ty. “Fur­ther­more, while the light works are on dis­play, the city’s oth­er light­ing has been reduced. If peo­ple remem­ber to turn off all the lights at home when leav­ing for Lumo, it evens out the con­sump­tion” states Halunen.

Lumo’s emis­sions can­not be com­pared to oth­er light fes­ti­vals, because oth­er fes­ti­vals have no known car­bon foot­print cal­cu­la­tions. “Com­pared to the num­ber of vis­i­tors to the light fes­ti­val, its emis­sions are mod­er­ate, espe­cial­ly due to using green elec­tric­i­ty and a loca­tion that allows pub­lic trans­porta­tion,” says San­na Task­i­la, the expert who made the cal­cu­la­tion.

The car­bon foot­print is also cal­cu­lat­ed at the event venues

The car­bon foot­print cal­cu­la­tion com­plet­ed for the Lumo light fes­ti­val is the first cal­cu­la­tion car­ried out for events in North­ern Ostro­both­nia, which has been car­ried out in the Most Sus­tain­able Euro­pean Cap­i­tal of Cul­ture Project. In addi­tion, Macon Oy also cal­cu­lates emis­sions for Oulu-based music fes­ti­vals Qstock and Var­jo, the game event Vec­tora­ma, win­ter fes­ti­val Frozen Peo­ple and Kuusamo-based NUTS trail run­ning event and tech­no fes­ti­val Sol­stice orga­nized.

Venues will be includ­ed in future cal­cu­la­tions, because their emis­sions and oper­at­ing meth­ods have a direct effect on the envi­ron­men­tal load of many events. In 2023, for exam­ple, the emis­sion cal­cu­la­tions of Ouluhal­li, Kuu­sisaari event park, Restau­rant Block and Kokar­di Club will be car­ried out.

Cal­cu­lat­ing the car­bon foot­print helps orga­ni­za­tions under­stand where emis­sions are born and how oper­a­tions can be changed to be more envi­ron­men­tal­ly sus­tain­able. The event orga­niz­ers who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the cal­cu­la­tion will receive a cus­tomized road map for reduc­ing emis­sions and instruc­tions with which they can cal­cu­late the fol­low­ing years’ emis­sions them­selves.

https://www.ouka.fi/lumo

https://www.macon.fi/

Pho­to: San­na Krook. Audi­ences of the Lumo Light Fes­ti­val in 2019.