As Kermit the Frog once famously said, "it ain't easy being green" but the Pleasance, the biggest venue at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, is nailing its colours to the mast, just this time instead of the usual yellow, they are turning green. The Pleasance will this year accurately measure its environmental footprint and set out a long term strategy to start reducing that impact with help from environmental certification company Planet Positive. In addition the venue will also create a set of guidelines for visiting companies on how they might also reduce their footprint.
To kick start the campaign, the Pleasance team and Planet Positive have launched a competition to find Britain's Best Green Joke. Anyone can enter their best green joke and upload it to www.facebook.com/beplanetpositive. Each week the most 'liked' jokes will be judged by acclaimed critic and star of ITV's 'Show Me the Funny', Kate Copstick. The winners will receive tickets to see some of the world's best comedians and shows at the Pleasance this summer.
Planet Positive is an international certification and environmental management system for businesses, products, buildings and services. Planet Positive certification signifies that a business is committed to reducing carbon emissions and improving sustainability.
Over the past two years the Pleasance has been exploring ways of reducing the power consumed and the waste it generates. In some areas of the operation this has already been reduced by up to fifty percent.
"With temporary venues in a festival environment, it is difficult to always find the greenest approach to a problem. This is something we are determined to improve on. We are delighted to be working with both Planet Positive and with the Festivals Edinburgh Green Venue Initiative to measure our current impact and make headway to improve it." Anthony Alderson, Pleasance Director.
This year the Pleasance has teamed-up with Planet Positive to give their 'Kidzone' at the Festival a green theme. Children can use an animated Kids Carbon Calculator and green fortune tellers to help get ideas on how to be greener and create a better way of living.
To help Pleasance achieve environmental certification at the event, Planet Positive will gather data on travel, waste and electricity and help raise awareness on sustainability issues such as recycling and energy efficiency. With over 20 venues and more than 500,000 people expected to visit Pleasance over 3 weeks, the event provides the perfect platform to communicate the benefits of sustainability in an entertaining and artistic way.