Tandem helped Adelaide Festival maintain Climate Active certification by calculating emissions, guiding offset purchases, and running sustainability workshops, supporting the festival’s leadership in climate action and community impact.
Introducing Adelaide Festival
Founded in 1960, the Adelaide Festival (AF) is an internationally acclaimed arts festival which occurs annually in South Australia over a period of 2 weeks every March.
As a world-renowned festival, AF decided to take a leadership position as one of the first major festivals in Australia to become carbon neutral and was certified for the 2020 event which generated around $70 million in economic impact in South Australia.
Our work with Adelaide Festival
In 2024 AF engaged Tandem to renew the Climate Active certification on an annual basis.
Tandem’s director, Rachel, is a Climate Active registered consultant with a great deal of experience in guiding organisations through the certification process.
In collaboration with the AF Sustainability Manager, Tandem established an emissions boundary and gathered data about electricity use, corporate travel, procurement, waste, and using proprietary software, calculated a total emissions footprint to offset.
Figure 1 – Certification boundary
In 2020 this footprint was approx. 10635 tCO2-e. In 2025 it was approx. 7473 tCO2-e.
Our calculations allowed AF to purchase the correct number of carbon offsets to create a carbon neutral result.
Challenges
Identifying emissions from events can be challenging as there are many moving parts occurring within a tight time frame in multiple locations. Everyone is under the pump and record keeping can be overlooked.
- Data from venues was sometimes unavailable due to slow communication and/or inadequate record keeping methods. Where necessary we made estimates based on previous years or average consumption based on hours of use.
- Differing levels of interest or commitment can also be a barrier to sustainability. Some venues were excited about the opportunity to participate but others were not.
Outcomes
As a result of emissions calculations for Climate Active, AF has purchased credits for projects such as:
- CGN Inner Mongolia Zhurihe Phase II Wind Farm Project
- Nulla Carbon
- Vaayu Wind Power Project Gujarat
- Katingan Peatland Restoration and Conservation Project
- Hebei Yuxian Kongzhongcaoyuan – 49.5MW Wind Farm Project
Becoming carbon neutral has helped Adelaide Festival with its aspirations to become a climate action leader. Not only does the organisation earn reputational credit but the carbon credits purchased as a result of the emissions calculations provide funding for essential environmental projects and create employment opportunities for locals.
Calculating your carbon footprint and understanding how emissions are generated can help to reduce future emissions. In 2025 AF, in collaboration with Tandem, conducted workshops to aid participating venues in understanding and achieving venue sustainability, and to enable them to measure and manage data collection more effectively in future.
Next steps
Ongoing improvements in data collection and management (for the umbrella organisation and participating venues) will help everyone involved in future festivals to measure and manage their emissions which will, in turn, enhance the accuracy of future reporting requirements.
Good news
Venues who attended the sustainability workshops showed an increased interest in becoming more sustainable and making better choices in educating of staff and patrons, and everyday purchasing decisions. The flow on effect from these decisions will hopefully impact the general community who attend festival events and help to raise awareness throughout the community.