We all love a good music festival, but we especially love a music festival that is environmentally conscious. Ultra Music Festival has taken initiative through ‘Mission: Home’, a sustainability program that was launched at UMF 2019 at Virginia Key. The inaugural program actioned shifts among vendors, staff, crew, employees and attendees who collectively decreased environmental impact. Together, they successfully reduced 526,000 plastic items from the waste stream, diverted more than 60,000 pounds of waste from landfill, achieved an impressive 100% acceptance of recycling loads at the local facility, and reached more than 2.7 million people worldwide.
When Ultra returned home to Bayfront Park for UMF 2022, it became clear that ‘Mission: Home’ had become part of the fabric of the organization. Ultra successfully executed 30 sustainability initiatives of waste reduction through water refill stations and bans on Styrofoam, as well as certain single-use plastics and bioplastics. Together, event bar operations and plastic and Styrofoam-free food vendors have helped reduce an impressive 85% of the types of single-use plastic previously distributed, including cups, straws, plates, cutlery and many other food service wares.
The vision of the ‘Mission: Home’ program is “to expand the environmental consciousness of everyone our programs reach, positively shifting behavior both on and off festival grounds.” Between both the 2022 and 2019 festivals, ‘Mission: Home’ has reached over 5.5 million people on social media alone, or more than 100 festivals worth of daily attendees. This program serves as a wonderful reminder for us to be mindful of the impact our lifestyles have on our planet Earth.
Since launching at Ultra Music Festival in 2019, ‘Mission: Home’ has reduced the use of more than 1.1 million plastic items. Each year, Ultra continues to utilize the power of its platform as an opportunity to spread this inspiring and increasingly important message, both locally and globally. Ultra has set truly the bar high for Festival Greening, and we can only hope that other organizations are taking notes.
