We are aware that the celebration of large musical events can have an impact on the environment, and at Cruïlla we have been working for years to reduce it to the minimum.
We’d like to explain all the actions we’re carrying out to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and improve Cruïlla’s relationship with Barcelona and the planet.
In our immediate surroundings
We want to focus our efforts on our immediate surroundings. 95% of our audience is local and most of the attendees travel on foot or by public transport. We are working with Renfe, TRAM and Moventis to create access routes to the festival and minimise pollution on journeys.
We also limit the capacity of the Parc del Fòrum to a maximum of 25,000 people per day to reduce the pressure on the neighbourhood.
We take care of our local artists, who we programme at the festival and in the venues throughout the year. In all areas of the festival we work with local suppliers and local products.
Minimising direct impact
At Cruïlla we are working intensively on the challenge that the big festivals have to become a more sustainable event thanks to proposals such as the elimination of generators that use fossil fuels to switch to green energy from the grid.
This edition of Cruïlla, alongside Endesa, we will make a study of the impact of the carbon footprint and different campaigns to raise public awareness and offset emissions.
We evolve from a 0 plastic festival to a 0 waste festival. We will carry out a study of the waste flow, accompanied by the Waste Agency of Catalonia, and the challenges to be faced by all those events that intend to respond to the increasingly widespread public concerns about their ecological viability.
Once again this year, we will hold the Sustainable Challenge, an open innovation project that seeks startups that work to solve environmental problems through an open call, the result of collaboration between Damm, Cruïlla Festival, the Waste Agency of Catalonia and the Ship2B Foundation.
On the way to reduce stock and waste in the sale of physical merchandising, this year Cruïlla will make a commitment to reduce surpluses and will set up an on-site printing system offering the possibility for the public to bring clothes from home and print them with the design of their choice so as not to use new pieces of clothing.
Transforma’t Space
As a innovation of this edition, we present the Transforma’t Space, a space articulated with multiple actors in the cooperation sector, especially NGOs, within the Cruïlla Festival, with the aim of generating critical awareness in the public of the festival, in a playful and positive way, coordinated by the Catalan Agency for Development Cooperation of the Government of Catalonia.
In total, 16 entities will participate in this space designed to provoke reflection on the situation in the world, inequalities and injustices and the structural causes that provoke them, as well as to promote awareness of individual and collective responsibility that will serve to motivate mobilization and action to transform the world.
A Cruïlla for everyone
We want to create a safe, civic and respectful space for the attendees. That’s why we offer specific training to staff on aspects such as equality and non-discriminatory treatment.
And a space is not safe if half of the attendees do not feel safe. To prevent and deal with any aggression or sexist behaviour, year after year we apply the Barcelona City Council’s No Callem protocol, present in a visible space within the festival.
We give access to the venue to groups at risk of vulnerability and social exclusion with the collaboration of Apropa Cultura and this year, since the festival will coincide with the celebration of the 6th World Parkinson Congress (WPC 2023), we will offer discounts to all its attendees and several members of the Cruïlla team will be part of the ‘Parkinson’s Ready’ course, organized by the Catalan Parkinson’s Association and the Barcelona Convention Bureau, in order to be able to properly assist all the participants of the WPC 2023 who come to the festival.
We have adapted areas for people with reduced mobility on all stages, with good visibility of the artists. We offer discounts for people with disabilities and their companions. We also have hearing protectors available for those who need them.
Finally, we offer discounts to unemployed people, facilitating access to culture as an essential good and not as a luxury.
Sustainability is not a fad, it is the only way forward. And, in our case, it is a firm commitment.
We believe that large events should tend towards the Cruïlla model. A model of medium-sized festivals, aimed at local audiences, committed to the territory, citizens and the environment.
