Fully aware of its environmental responsibilities, the Festival del film Locarno is implementing a series of measures to reduce the CO2 emissions generated by the event and its organisation. This environmental policy, inaugurated in 2010, goes even further this year by concentrating in particular on transport modes and waste-disposal. Several other additional measures have been taken to improve on existing initiatives.

Transport:

• - Encouragement to use public transport via special offers e.g. combined tickets (transport and entry ticket to a Piazza Grande screening) in collaboration with Railway-FFS
• - A free shuttle between the Festival’s various screening venues
• - Free use of 50 electric bicycles for delegates in collaboration with Flyer Biketec
• - Recharging of the electric bicycles with renewable energy thanks to partnerships with SolarDay (via bus stops with integrated solar panels),  Azienda Elettrica Ticinese, and Società Elettrica Sopracenerina with certified “green” energy.
• - Implementation of a Park and Ride service.
• - Membership of the “car share” initiative LIBERALAUTO in collaboration with Rete Tre della Radiotelevisione della Svizzera Italiana (www.liberalauto.ch)
• - Increase in the fleet of official hybrid cars (over 85% of the vehicles) in collaboration with Toyota

Separate waste collection and disposal and reduction in use of paper:

• - Separate waste collection and disposal and various measures to raise public awareness in the most frequented places and at peak attendance times with the Repubblica del Cantone Ticino – Dipartimento del territorio and the Città di Locarno.
• - Use of recycled and certified FSC Mixed Sources (Forest Stewardship Council) paper
• - Reduction of paper promotional material thanks to the adoption of e-mailboxes (communication via mail)
• - Migrating content previously printed on paper to new digital media (iPhone/iPad/Android apps)

Notwithstanding these attempts to reduce CO2 emissions generated by the event, the zero impact objective remains impossible to achieve. For this reason, the Festival del film Locarno has entered into a partnership with the Swiss foundation myclimate to offset the Festival’s CO2 emissions, thereby securing the “myclimate neutral event” label.
Through this collaboration the Festival is funding a project to replace coal with “pellets” produced from biomass (renewable energy derived from agricultural and forestry waste) in the Uttarakhand region in northern India. The energy produced is in part used by the local steel and brick industry. The project also envisages the supply of more efficient cooking ranges (with a 50% energy saving in comparison to current methods) for schools, hospitals and other public buildings in the region, thus guaranteeing a reduction in emissions and at the same time fosters social development.

We would like to thank all our partners both public and private, as well as the Jannuzzi Smith studio (Lugano – London) who have enabled us to implement these initiatives.