A GREEN EVENT

The Buddha's Day and Multicultural Festival is committed to minimising its environmental impact by reducing the carbon and ecological footprint of the Festival.

Energy

All events and programs are powered by 100% Green Energy under Federation Square's sustainable practices program.

Water

The Festival works with Federation Square and City West Water, our Community Sponsors in implementing a sustainable water plan. 

Concrete, sand bags or pre-filled grey water is used as base weights for infrastructure and festival wind dancers are filled with recycled water from the tanks on site collected from the rain. 

When the festival is done, we return it to the tanks!

Waste

In 2009, the Buddha's Day and Multicultural Festival became a Waste Wise event, certified by the Metropolitan Waste Management Group.

Since then, Buddha's Light International Association of Victoria and Fo Guang Shan Melbourne continue to work closely with Federation Square in tackling event waste management issues by reducing waste, re-using and improving recycling.

The festival organisers have invested in infrastructure and signage to be re-used every year.

All events have been created with careful consideration of material options to ensure maximised diversion of waste from landfill.

In 2011, for the third consecutive year, all food stall-holders of the Tastes of Asia - vegetarian food fair will be using biodegradable and compostable packaging and tableware, which will break down faster in landfill and be kinder to our environment.

Sustainable and local suppliers

The Festival is a completely vegetarian event, all our raw food materials and perishable supplies are sourced locally and where possible by sustainable suppliers.

Our compostable catering supplier is certified Carbon Neutral; we've opted for very limited runs of printed promotional materials using Envirocare 100% recycled paper and vegetable/soy based ink, and encourage visitors to access information about the Festival via this website, where digital versions of all festival collateral can be found.

Carbon and Ecological Footprint

We're gathering data to calculate our carbon and ecological footprint with an aim to becoming a Certified Carbon Neutral Event.

How can you help?

Patrons of the Festival will be provided with four waste streams with specific signage and colour coding to encourage the use of recycling bins.

• aluminium, glass and plastic (red bins);
• clean paper & cardboard;
• food and biodegradable plates, cups, cutlery and containers (yellow bins) and

• general waste (grey bins)

Help us reduce the footprint of the festival by:

• Taking note of the signs on the rubbish bin - Remember to put the right thing in the right bin;
• Keep your rubbish separate from the recyclables;
• Checking out the Festival Program via this website and
• Opting to walk, ride or take public transport to the festival this year.