AAA White Paper The political economy of informal events, 2030 | Page 77

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Shape of air quality devices
at events to come? This
CityTree helps cut pollution
in Killermont Street,
Glasgow
7. ENERGY AND ENVIRONMENT: TECHNOLOGY TO THE RESCUE!
In recent years, many organisers of events – not just informal ones, but
also B2B conferences and exhibitions – have taken more seriously the effect
of their operations on the environment. How then is the environmental
impact of informal events likely to evolve up to 2030?
To cut CO 2 emissions and local levels of exhaust and noise pollution,
it would be good, in principle, if people got to events by electric car, rather
than by using the petrol-driven sort. The problem is that we will have to
wait till way past 2030 before the electric car accounts for, say, a quarter
of Britain’s fleet of 32 million cars on the road. Already the subject of both
confused government targets and wider doubts, electric cars will only
arrive at UK music festivals in 2030 in small numbers, and will mostly
be driven by rich show-offs.
However: if electric cars, as well as the driverless technologies
touched on earlier, will barely affect informal events, the technologies of
electricity generation, air quality, noise reduction and litter removal
will significantly improve informal events by 2030.
First, diesel and gas electricity generators, the first standby for rural
events and the first fallback in case of power cuts anywhere, face tougher
emissions targets, and are anyway moving toward using and storing
renewable energy.
Second, China, Poland and the Netherlands have begun to install
outdoor towers, seven metres tall and made of aluminium, capable of
stripping the air surrounding them of particulates. Similarly, London,
Glasgow and Watford have adopted CityTrees – outdoor walls of moss, 4m
high, that remove nearby dust, nitrogen dioxide and CO 2 . Solutions more
mobile than these will no doubt come into play around the informal events
of tomorrow.
Third, by 2030 we can look forward to some useful technological
advances in acoustics and
noise reduction. The software
modelling of sound will be more
sophisticated. Better measurement
and management of sound on-
site – heavy metal bands such as
Metallica included – will obviate
problems.
Last, the technologies of litter
removal are moving ahead.
Let’s get litter at informal events
in context. Note at the outset that
general household waste in the
UK is quite modest compared with
that generated by building sites
and by business. Chart 19, overleaf,
shows this; it also confirms that the
amount of household plastics waste, while a problem, is still more modest
– to be precise, 2.26 million tonnes out of a national total of 145.7 million
tonnes, or just 1.5 per cent.