Flow Festival, organised in Helsinki’s Suvilahti on August 13–16, 2009 as part of the Helsinki Festival, has co-operated with the Finnish consulting agency Pöyry in calculating the event’s carbon footprint. Based on the calculations, a plan for compensating for the festival’s carbon emissions was also drafted and carried out. The calculations included the event’s carbon emissions related to Flow’s technical production, transportation, electricity, and artist travel. Flow Festival aims to achieve more ecological ways of producing the event in the future.

According to the calculations, the sixth edition of Flow Festival generated approximately 125 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions. By the standards of everyday living, the sum is comparable to some 120 return flights from Helsinki to New York.

Flow Festival compensates for its carbon emission by offsetting them in co-operation with the only Finnish operator in the business, Nordic Offset. Flow’s contribution is directed to the wind energy project “Mare” in Turkey, which is certified with WWF’s Gold Standard certificate. The Gold Standard is the most strictly monitored offset certificate, which is moderated by the Gold Standard Foundation based in Switzerland.

www.poyry.fi
www.nordicoffset.com

• 2009-08-17 – Flow expanded successfully
• 2009-08-15 – Flow off to a great start
• 2009-06-23 – Heartsrevolution and The Terror Pigeon Dance Revolt to play Flow’s Friday night
• 2009-06-02 – Vampire Weekend and The Juan MacLean to play Flow