A sustainable festival thanks to eco-coaching
We are taking action to reduce the festival's carbon footprint
03 October 2025
Sustainability is one of the festival’s core values. An event such as Various Voices naturally has a significant environmental impact (travel by choir members, electricity consumption, paper used for promoting the event, food and drink, waste, etc.). But we believe that it is possible to reduce this impact through a few simple measures.
In order to be supported in this process, the festival team has requested financial support from the National Lottery as part of its ‘Eco-coaching’ initiative. The National Lottery has adopted an ambitious climate action plan to reduce its emissions and drastically reduce its ecological footprint. It also wants to encourage its partners to make their activities more sustainable. It will therefore finance an analysis of the festival’s carbon footprint with an action plan.
With the budget received (€5,000), Various Voices Brussels 2026 has chosen to work with Tapio, one of the expert consultants proposed by the National Lottery to carry out this work.
Tapio has provided us with the information we need to collect and evaluate all the festival’s sources of emissions and is helping us to draw up an action plan to reduce them to a minimum. This includes, for example, encouraging travel to Brussels by train, but also by public transport or bicycle within the city, reducing electricity consumption, carefully sorting waste and offering locally produced food. This collaboration will continue in the run-up to the festival and will conclude with the drafting of an overall assessment of the event, which we will be able to send to Brighton, the city organising the next festival.
