Sustainability at Darwin Festival
Darwin Festival integrates sustainability into its operations by prioritising waste reduction, resource reuse, and environmentally conscious partnerships.
Things we do to help the environment
- Darwin Festival acknowledges our environmental responsibility and strives to be a catalyst for environmental change.
- We are committed to actioning initiatives that protect our natural environments and benchmark our environmental impact.
- We lead environmental best practices in the Northern Territory arts and cultural sector incorporating prevention, reduction, and restoration.
- We strive to reduce consumption of physical resources; reuse and recycle; engage renewables; and employ processes and products that eliminate toxic materials.
- We will consistently measure and reduce our impacts on the environment, while offsetting the remaining carbon emissions involved in presenting our Festival.
- Let us all tread lightly to minimise Darwin Festival’s footprint.
How we are minimising our environmental impact
- 100% reusable cups at our two Festival Hubs – Festival Park and Sitzler Festival Lawn
- 51% of waste produced in 2025 was composted or recycled
- 1 tonne of non-recyclable glass bottles crushed to be recycled in construction projects
- 21,373 containers recycled via the Cash for Container Project – a social enterprise which offers growing employment opportunities for young people with disability
- We provide volunteers with reusable water bottles sponsored by BMD with Power and Water providing water stations at our Festival hubs
- 40kg of leftover merchandise recycled through UPPAREL, an Australian organization that collects, reuses, repurposes or recycles unwanted materials, ensuring that nothing makes it to landfill.
How you can join us in our vision to reduce our impact
- Walk or ride to events if you can.
- Whenever possible, take public transport.
- Carpool or scoot between Festival venues on an e-scooter.
- Say no to single-use plastic, bring your own drinking containers or purchase a reusable cup from the bar.
- Use the four bin system provided in Festival Park.
- Recycle your Darwin Festival program guide or gift it to a friend.
