Carbon Karma

Age
Wednesday 28/3/2007 Page: 16

The dream of hosting an authentically green festival has struck fertile ground in the central Victorian town of Castlemaine, writes Genevieve Barlow.

WOMADELAIDE did it. The Commonwealth Games did it. Now Victoria's longest-running arts festival is getting in on the act. On Friday, The Castlemaine State Festival, a 10-day extravaganza of opera, theatre, cabaret, music, dance and visual arts, dawns as an agent of good in the fight against global warming. It's going carbon neutral.

Patrons have been urged to buy green tickets, to take the train when coming from Melbourne or Bendigo, to use bikes (provided free) to get around town and to think about walking instead of driving between venues. Special breakfasts and lunches will offer food grown within 100 kilometres of town to demonstrate the importance of lowering food miles. Local businesses, from the butcher to real estate agents to pubs, are going with the green flow and switching to green power energy for the 10 days as are all official festival venues. Plastic and paper plates are definitely out on the festival's big final day of music and wine in the Botanical Gardens. Teams of students will wash dishes instead.

Festival manager Greg Marginson is buying green airline tickets to fly from his home in Canberra to festival office headquarters in the central Victorian town, and artistic director Caroline Stacey says she'll definitely cycle between some events and venues. That's because this festival, unlike others that swear to carbon neutrality, is actually working on reducing energy use, rather than simply buying carbon offsets, which equate to permits to pollute.

So says the idea's creator, Heather Barrett, a retired businesswoman who, with her husband Neil, is a key player in a local charge to get the town of 7600 people to cut its energy use and switch to renewable energy sources. Their dream has struck fertile ground in this home of the artistically inclined that happens to also boast on its annual calendar of events a very popular truck show.

About 18 months ago, the Barretts and others with money behind them formed a sustainability group that's no working on educating householders to cut their power bills, establishing a local carbon offset bank, working with the local Mt Alexander Shire Council to reduce greenhouse gas output by 30 per cent by 2010 and on renewable energy projects involving the towns major energy users, including Castlemaine KR (formerly Castlemaine Bacon), affectionately known as The Baco, and the local hospital.

The group believes a carbon-neutral festival - one that didn't add to the Earth's warming gases total - is a good way to show others how to make a difference. After some argy-bargy about whether they should or shouldn't and some initial uncertainty from members of the local Rotary Club, which contributes $7500 to the festival, the festival's board, headed by chairman Michael Bottomley, supported the idea. We just needed someone to come and explain to us what carbon neutral is all about," said Rotary Club president Paul Malherbe, explaining their hesitation. "Seventy per cent of our members are over 55 or 60 years old and many don't know what it's about."

Carbon auditing companies Greenhouse Balanced and Evantech, based in Kyneton, were called in to assess how much greenhouse gas the festival was likely to produce. It looked at how many megajoules of energy were used in transporting patrons and artists to the previous festival, how much electricity visitors used while in Castlemaine for the festival, and how much electricity and gas the festival office and venues used. The result was 708.4 tonnes.

About 66 per cent of this came from cars used by people driving to events. This is small compared with the town's estimated annual 300,000 tonnes output of greenhouse gas. Despite this, the newly formed and highly energised band of volunteers at the Mt Alexander Sustainability Group considered the festival a key educational opportunity and has been working solidly to realise their carbon-dioxide cutting goal. "Most festivals start their greenhouse gas auditing at front of house, from when patrons arrive; but we've included their travel," says group spokesman Ian Lillington.

About 35,000 people are expected at the festival. Marginson expects ticket sales of 10,000. By 5pm yesterday, 5904 tickets had been sold, and only one in 50 ticket buyers had opted to pay $10 (for a single) or $20 (for a family) extra to buy green tickets. That money, says Marginson, will be used to buy wind energy from Origin Energy. He estimates that the cost of running the festival carbon neutral is about 1 per cent of its total budget. The amount of electricity consumed by the CSF office and venues (alone) on the Evantech audit was 9197 kilowatt/hours which would equate to a purchase of 10 megawatt/hours.

Origin will sell that (power) to the Castlemaine State Festival at $50 per Mwh. This would mean the festival will be offsetting 14.4 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the festival for a maximum outlay of $500." It's pathetically small when compared with the greenhouse gas output of a city or of an entire country like China but Victorian leisure management researcher Dr Ruth Rentschler says communities are recognising both sides of running festivals and are beginning to tackle the issues.

It used to be assumed that the impact of festivals and events would be positive but now there is an understanding that they are both positive and negative." Its effect on worldwide greenhouse gas output may be small, but butcher Mark Kemp is getting in on the act.

The monthly power bill at his place in Castlemaine's shopping heart tops $1000 and he can't really afford extra dollars for green power, but he's opted for it during the festival because it's "good to get on board". Like publican Daniel McDonald, whose power bill will increase $5 to $55 a day during the festival, he'd consider becoming a regular renewable energy user if it were cheaper.

Artists were also given a list of things they could do to cut their fossil fuel usage. But Sydney-based aerial artists Erth reckon they're already fairly conscientious about energy use. Alongside hotrods, their opening night extravaganza features giant puppets and 150 cyclists. We're a people-powered event," says Erth team member Scott Wright.

Caroline Stacey, who has directed three Castlemaine festivals, hints that this may be her last. This year she is overseeing 130 performing acts (there are 224 all up, including Fringe events) but this new aspect has added something that she says was impossible to resist "because this was what was happening in the community".

Plus, encouraging people to travel by train and walk to venues is a bonus, she says. "It's encouraging people to slow down, breathe in and really be in a place. You feel more open and more relaxed and ready to examine the question of revelation," says Stacey, who suggests this fits the festival's theme of rebirth and renewal.

Festival founder Berek Segan, who made part of his fortune as a timber miller, supports the idea. "Australia has to compromise somewhere in the future with our commercial and industrial output. But then, we don't want to lose our workforce," says the 89-year-old Toorak patron. It's doubtful he'll be cycling between venues but he's sworn to fit in as much as he can and will definitely be attending Melbourne Opera's opening night performance of The Barber of Seville.

Whatever happens, says Barrett, reducing greenhouse gas output is now "hugely on the agenda in Castlemaine". The Castlemaine State Festival runs from Friday to April 8.
Day return train tickets cost $30.60 peak and $21.40 off-peak.

Links:
www.castlemainefestival.com.au
www.vline.com.au for the Melbourne-to-Castlemaine train schedule