Food & Drinks: Who Said Sustainable Couldn't Taste Good?
Land, water, energy. The impact of our food production system is immense. Almost three-quarters of the world’s agricultural land is used for livestock farming and is responsible for 15% of global CO2 emissions. Since 2022, DGTL has gone fully plant-based to reduce that footprint and is now taking a deep dive into beverage production. Next level: urban farming. This is the second of five articles about DGTL's five pillars of sustainability.
Foregoing a meat-based meal and picking a vegetarian option reduces your environmental impact significantly. Taking the vegan route makes an even bigger dent in your ecological footprint: 45%, according to Fork Ranger. With a delicious food and drinks menu that is entirely plant-based and also opting for organic, seasonal, and local ingredients, we make the most responsible choice we can. Starting this year, our partners in catering now give us detailed insights into the ecological impact of their meals, including resulting CO2 emissions, so we can choose the most sustainable options. Combining sustainability and taste at the highest possible level is the priority for both DGTL and our partners.
Our goal? All the food we offer at the festival should be entirely plant-based, and part of a food chain designed to return nutrients to the ecosystem – whether that’s through humans, animals, or the earth. And that’s what we’ve done with both our menu and our no-waste policy. All while never skimping on taste.
On the Grounds
In the last couple of editions, we’ve created an appealing menu with a wide variety of choices for visitors, pre-register meals for artists and crew, and have gone from compostable to reusable tableware. Producing a meat-based burger costs 2,400 liters of water, while our partners at Beyond Meat use 1,100. At DGTL Amsterdam 2024, we sold over 1.322 Beyond Meat burgers, saving over 280,000 liters of water – equivalent to the suggested daily water intake for 140.000 people!
With data from previous festivals – like popular meal choices and consumption patterns – we also developed guidelines to be able to prepare just the right amount of food. The result? Happy people and less wasted food. And while we’re fully immersed in improving the beverage production chain, we’re also dreaming about the next step: urban farming and creating food from the nutrients we’ve managed to save.
Beyond the Fence
Whether you’re on stage, in the crowd, or behind the scenes – we all contribute to making DGTL sustainable. And since a festival pretty much operates like a small city, we hope that what we learn here can be of use beyond the fence. Like visitors finding out exactly how nutritious and delicious plant-based food really is and hopefully taking that experience home. By functioning as a practical testing ground for sustainable solutions, we can work with innovators so they can try out their ideas, which could potentially benefit both the festival industry and the wider world.
What's Next?
The more we learn, the more we realize we still need to do. And that’s ok. Every edition, together with our partners from all over, we continue to find new and better ways to run the most sustainable party in the world. And with our visitors pitching in more and more, it truly becomes a collaborative effort. Let’s get the crowd moving to the beat while joining us in making a big sustainable impact.
Your Impact
By participating in all of DGTL’s sustainable solutions, and even by simply being part of the crowd, you make a positive impact on the world.
What we’ve been talking about here is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to everything that’s involved in running a completely circular festival. Want to know more about what goes on behind the scenes, year-round? Click on through.
