Clubtopia

The key moment for Sarah Bergmann came when she walked round the campsite at Ferropolis after all the festivalgoers had gone: broken-down stands, flapping tents, and heaps of garbage as far as the eye could see. "I thought to myself: we can't go on like this. We have to take a fresh look at our responsibilities." That's why, since 2018, she has been working as Guest Relations Manager for Awareness and Sustainability at Goodlive GmbH, which among other things organizes the Melt, splash!, Full Force, and Lollapalooza festivals. 

Garbage deposit fees, green camping, meat-free Friday, food sharing, CO2-offsetting—there are already lots of suggestions for making festivals sustainable on the Melt Festival website. Sarah Bergmann has also created an area of the campsite called [FAIR]OPOLIS, where creative companies and NGOs try to raise awareness of the subject. And it's high time: as it says on the festival website, "Music festivals have the CO2 footprint of a small town." 

And night clubs aren't much better. A small music club consumes as much electricity in a year as 33 households in Germany and produces about 30 tons of CO2—not to mention the emissions from the heating, garbage processing, water supply, and transportation. That's what it says in the Green Club Guide, which aims to act as a virtual climate consultant, advising event organizers on what action to take and persuading festivalgoers to alter their mindset. It has been published by Clubtopia, a joint venture by the Berlin Clubcommission and the Federation for the Environment and Nature Conservation (BUND) in Berlin, Clubmob.Berlin and the organization clubliebe, who describe themselves as "friends of the movement to save the world through music."

"I don't like the phrase environmental sins", says Konstanze Meyer, Project Manager at Clubtopia. "Clubs don't do anything worse than we all do in our daily lives. They're not especially sinful. But they still need to take some kind of action." One Berlin club that has been addressing the subject of sustainability for some time now is SchwuZ. As soon as they moved into the former Kindl brewery in Neukölln, the club owners invested in a new ventilation system and installed waterless urinals to save water. The club tries to avoid generating waste, uses sustainable cleaning materials and energy-saving LED lighting. However, the biggest impact came from converting to the right green electricity supplier, says the Managing Director of SchwuZ, Marcel Weber: "I stress right, because there are very few certified green power providers in Germany which are 100% regenerative. We saved the most CO2 by switching energy supplier." 

Ecological, economic, social, and cultural—these are the four levels of sustainability according to the Green Club Guide. However, sustainability also implies long-termism—a perspective that unfortunately doesn't take account of the actual situation in which many clubs find themselves today. "That's really often the biggest hurdle," admits Konstanze Meyer. "Many clubs are very motivated to do something. But they often have short leases and so they can't make long-term investments."

To change that, in 2020, the Clubcommission took the matter as far as the Federal Parliament. The main concern was to get clubs recognized as cultural venues. Even though the rate of VAT was cut to 7% in 2020, putting clubs on an equal footing with cultural venues for tax purposes, and Berlin's clubs were formally acknowledged as such, the hoped-for reform of building legislation has not yet happened—so the scope for sustainable investment remains limited. Nevertheless, that should not be used as an excuse, says Konstanze Meyer: "You can do a lot with what you already have. Where are the fridges located, when do I turn them off, how full do I keep them? The last one out turns off the lights sounds banal—but these are things that don't even cost any money to do."

The Analysis of the Carbon Balance Sheet for festivals showed that transport is responsible for almost 78% of all the emissions. This requires a change of mindset on the part of festivalgoers and also a change in the way acts are booked. There are ideas for how to make music tours greener in the Green Touring Guide. But booking agents also need to take responsibility, says Marcel Weber from SchwuZ. "We focus on booking local acts, combined with international performers who live in Berlin anyway. We can put together a fantastic program like that and support the local queer scene."
 
Sustainable and Socially Responsible: a Pioneering Role for Club Culture
 For Marcel Weber, there's also a social dimension to sustainability: SchwuZ is one of the few clubs in Berlin to take part in the berlinpass scheme that offers reduced admission prices to people on a low income. Fair drinks prices are also important, as are supporting queer advice services and issuing free passes to refuge accommodation so that everyone can get involved. "That's another aspect of sustainability that's important to us," says Weber. He doesn't agree with the idea that hedonism and sustainability cannot go together. 

That's what happened with the splash! edutainment events organized with NGOs for a younger audience. At the Full Force festival, the Sea Shepherd conservation society was invited—many heavy metal fans wear their T-shirts anyway. "If the NGOs are a good match for the audience then it goes down well. It's just a question of presenting the subject in the right way for the target audience," insists Bergmann.
 
If clubs and festivals are becoming aware of their political potential, they are essentially going back to their roots in the queer subculture from which they originated, believes Marcel Weber. "I believe that the fight for recognition and equality is just as important as the fight for sustainability and climate protection. It's intersectional. You need people to highlight the issue even if it's not yet popular or mainstream. So we're paving the way and hoping that others will follow." 

Climate Crisis on the Doorstep: Personal Responsibility and Organization
 
Konstanze Meyer wishes that politicians would take more responsibility and encourage sustainable projects at night clubs. However, she is critical of conventional environmental quality marks and special regulations. "Guests wouldn't go to a club because it said it was a Green Club. The disadvantage of quality marks is that they can be too inflexible and don't account for the special features of particular clubs." Meyer believes that the principle of self-regulation is sufficient for the club scene, because there is a high level of awareness of social issues there anyway. Marcel Weber thinks it's a question of personal responsibility, too. He is currently working with other club managers on a Code of Conduct on this subject.

However, for clubs like SchwuZ, state support is essential for their survival—especially during the pandemic, which has shown how quickly free market capitalism sweeps aside the weakest in times of crisis, if the state does not intervene.

Nevertheless, despite all the setbacks for the club scene, Marcel Weber thinks something positive has come out of the crisis: "Covid has shown how much change is possible in a short time if the needs of the majority of society are recognized." He sees state subsidies as an opportunity to invest in making sustainable improvements now. 
 
Konstanze Meyer sees in the Covid crisis the potential to make literally sustainable changes to the club scene—depending on how long the pandemic goes on for. Even though for a lot of clubs it's still a question simply of surviving, there has been plenty of time to think about the future. That is why Clubtopia is offering opportunities for further training on sustainability now, with its online course Green Club Training. Meyer believes that: "Many people hope that it won't go back to business as usual when the clubs reopen." 

Marcel Weber also sees hope for the post-coronavirus period: "In many ways we are experiencing a more mindful, aware society. It's clearly an opportunity to seize the moment in the interests of sustainability. The pandemic will be over one day. But the climate catastrophe is already virtually on the doorstep. We'll have to deal with it for decades to come."