SustainableFlow

Flow Festival is known for its long-standing sustainability work reaching over a decade. In 2021, Flow Festival launched the Flow Impacts research project in cooperation with D-Mat, an expert company for a sustainable future, extensively examining the festival’s environmental effects. The project has been supported by Finland’s sustainable growth program, funded by the European Union’s NextGenerationEU financing.

The calculation tool created in the project was used to calculate the carbon footprint, measuring emissions, and material footprint, determining the consumption of natural resources, of Flow Festival 2022, 2023, and 2024. Through the results, an even more holistic understanding of the environmental impacts of different aspects of Flow has been formed.

The overall carbon footprint of the 2024 festival was 2,125 t CO₂e, (2023: 1,995), and the festival’s material footprint, which measures the consumption of natural resources, was 7,768 t (2023: 7,141 t).  The carbon footprint of an individual visitor corresponds to about 1,5 days worth of emissions and the material footprint approximately 1 day’s worth of consumption of an average Finn.

Flow Festival strives to discover new solutions for producing more sustainable events. The budgeting and calculation tool for natural resources and ecological footprint created in the Flow Impacts research project enables the event industry to consider the environmental effects better already in the planning phase of events. The tool is currently being further developed in cooperation with Tietoevry.

Based on the footprint calculations and expertise provided by D-mat, Flow continues to reduce its environmental debt by donating to the Finnish Natural Heritage Foundation. The donation made for the 2023 event enables 5.3 hectares of Finnish old-growth forest to be permanently protected. Protecting old-growth forests helps fight the climate crisis and biodiversity loss.

Flow guides and educates its food vendors on ecological catering. In 2022, Flow dropped red meat and poultry entirely out of the food selection, and in 2025 the festival will emphasise and increase the use of plant-based dishes in its restaurant services even further.

The Flow Impacts research project proved that removing red meat and poultry from the food selection has significantly decreased Flow Festival’s climate impact. Food and drink contribute the third biggest source for carbon and material footprint, which is why reducing the environmental impact of food is so crucial when looking for ways to create more sustainable practices. In 2024, the carbon and material footprint for food decreased even more thanks to the increase in the amount of vegan dishes
In the future, Flow aims at becoming a completely vegan festival. Already 85 percent of the dishes sold during the festival are either vegetarian or vegan, and for the last three years almost half of the sold portions have been vegan.

Transformation to being a completely vegan festival is supposed to be executed step by step, first by moving away from offering fish and other seafood. The discussion about the transition to being completely vegan with restaurants operating at the festival will commence in 2025. Flow Festival’s visitors can fill up their water bottles at the festival’s water supply points. By drinking tap water, visitors can reduce plastic waste and carbon footprint. Additionally, Flow’s drink selection includes numerous responsibly produced beverages and several non-alcoholic drink options.

Flow sorts and recycles all waste produced during the festival, redirecting it to energy production or reusing waste materials. The goal is to further maximise the share of biowaste and other reusable waste products further. In 2023, we intensified the festival’s waste treatment in cooperation with L&T, for example, switching to packed biowaste, making recycling easier. Furthermore, all excess building materials possible are donated forward.

The festival seeks sustainable and durable solutions for all stages of event production. For example, we select furniture, fittings, and decorations that use recyclable, reusable, and long-lasting materials. We do our best to avoid new purchases, but when we must, we prefer recycled materials, local production and renewable materials.

Flow Festival utilises generators that provide most of the electricity needed for the festival, while at the same time it continuously searches for new ways to intensify the festival’s energy planning to make it more ecological and economical.

The Flow Impacts research determined that visitors’ arrival at the festival can amount to 70 % of the festival’s overall carbon and material footprints. We therefore encourage all visitors to arrive at Flow by bike, foot or public transport, as each transportation choice really matters.

Since 2012, Flow Festival has used the EcoCompass environmental management system. In 2025, the EcoCompass certificate will be audited and updated again.

For several years, we have also cooperated with the John Nurminen Foundation. Visitors have been able to support the Foundation with a donation of their choice while purchasing a festival ticket. In 2024, the total donation sum of Flow visitors amounted to 6,335 euros. The goal of the Foundation’s environmental projects is to improve the condition of the Baltic Sea with concrete measures that reduce the sea’s load and ecological risks.

Additionally, in 2024 accredited guests and media could donate to the John Nurminen säätiö’s Save a piece campaign.

We execute a visitor survey every year, which was answered by 8,500 visitors in 2023. 94 % of the people who gave their opinion felt that Flow executed equality well. We continuously strive to develop and carry out equality even better and happily accept any ideas you may have regarding the matter. You can approach us by emailing to office AT flowfestival.com.

Flow also participates in the European Keychange initiative, which aims to improve underrepresented gender’s standing in the music industry. Among other things, Keychange participants commit to choosing an equal amount of male and female, trans and non-binary performers by 2022. Flow accomplished the goal in advance: in 2019, 65%, and in 2024, 58 % of the groups that performed at Flow had women, trans or non-binary members.

Flow works in professional, ethical, and responsible manners and in a sustainable way for the environment and society. We cooperate and converse openly with the organisations, authorities, and other officials in our field of business.

The festival area is designed to be as accessible as possible, considering visitors with reduced mobility. The accessibility planning of the festival area has been done in cooperation with Riesa Consultative, and we strive to consider, for example, visitors with reduced mobility even better. The EU Disability Card and Toilet Card (Vessapassi) can be used at Flow Festival. Assistants can always enter Flow Festival free of charge with the assisted person.

We develop Flow’s accessibility continually and welcome improvement suggestions via email to office AT flowfestival.com. We are updating accessibility information for this year’s festival and will add them to the website soon.

In 2024 more than 6,600 festival goers replied to our yearly executed visitor survey. In the survey, the respondents were asked to evaluate Flow’s general security on the scale of 1 to 5. 94 % of the respondents gave a grade between 3 to 5, with 89 % giving either the best or second best grade. 5 % of the overall respondents were not able to give a grade, while only 1 % gave it grade 2 and 0 % gave the worst grade.

We strive to develop and improve the festival’s safety continuously – please send us feedback on the matter to office AT flowfestival.com.

Flow Festival does long-term and systematic work to operate financially sustainably. For the festival’s operation to be economically sustainable, it must also be financially profitable.

In addition, we are constantly working to develop the event industry to be more professional and sustainable. We employ a permanent team of ten people, hundreds of seasonal workers in the events industry, numerous interns and thousands of people through cooperation and subcontracting chains. We comply with statutory employer obligations and remuneration following industry salary recommendations. We also work closely with other operators in the field to develop operating models. We invest in responsibility in procurement and services, and we favour local operators in, for example, accommodation, restaurants and other areas of production.

Furthermore, Flow Festival works constantly to promote more sustainable practices for the event industry by offering the budgeting tool it developed with D-Mat and Tietoevry for other events to use.