Echoes from Agartha and Erguvan: Pioneering Sustainability in Festivals and Accelerating Renewable Energy Transition in Turkiye

Living on this remarkable planet bestows upon us a shared responsibility: to preserve its beauty for future generations. As the team behind Echoes from Agartha, we’re deeply committed to reducing the ecological footprint of our festival, encompassing aspects like travel, on-site operations, and festival accommodations. Our partnership with Erguvan (erguvan.co), announced last year, marks a critical stride in our endeavor to achieve carbon neutrality for Echoes From Agartha by 2026, a goal ambitiously aligned with the objectives of the UN Paris Climate Agreement.

In the inaugural year of our sustainability initiative, we gave festival-goers the opportunity to offset their flight emissions, successfully raising awareness about the environmental impact of air travel, while financially backing high-integrity emission reduction projects in the Turkish voluntary carbon market. At our 2022 event, we also reduced plastic waste by providing reusable water bottles to Agartha Experience and Music + Hotel pass holders.

This year, we’re sharpening our focus on areas within our direct influence, empowering us to catalyze meaningful change. Here’s a look at our two primary areas of focus for this year:

1. Procuring 100% Renewable Energy by Tracking On-site and Off-site Energy Consumption

Transporting our visitors to off-grid Cappadocian locales for the festival’s main events, unfortunately, necessitates reliance on fossil-fuel-powered generators. Given the boutique nature of our festival and the cost-prohibitive nature of on-site renewable energy generation, we’re unable to transition to green energy for on-site use. Additionally, festival hotels procure their electricity from a mixed-source regional power grid (Turkiye’s average grid emission factor is 0,6488 tCO2e/MWh according to the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources).

Our solution? We’ll track energy consumption both on-site and off-site and offset the non-renewable portion by financially backing renewable energy sources elsewhere. By purchasing Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs), we’ll be supporting the green energy transition in Turkiye while ensuring our festival venues and hotels run on 100% renewable energy. As an environmental commodity, RECs provide a mechanism for individuals, businesses, and institutions to support renewable energy generation and offset their non-renewable energy use. They play a crucial role in tracking, trading, and promoting renewable energy usage, and are a key component in the functioning of green power markets. Feel free to visit the social website of the International REC Standard (https://www.irecstandard.org/) to learn more.

2. Sustainability Engagement with Festival Hotels

Echoes from Agartha has positively impacted Cappadocia’s economic sustainability by drawing thousands from around the world over the past 2 years. This year, we aspire to extend that impact to environmental sustainability as well, creating lasting change that extends beyond the festival week. As our sustainability partner, Erguvan will launch a program that encourages festival hotels to disclose their sustainability efforts and set measurable, annual targets. 

Based on the insights gathered this year, Erguvan will offer its carbon footprinting software to the hotels free of charge from next year, fostering the adoption of carbon accounting practices that will empower the hotels to reduce their footprint and align with industry standards like the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) criteria. We hope this initiative will foster a spirit of healthy competition among the region’s hotels and make sustainability a core part of their operations.

Stay tuned to this page for updates on our sustainability journey. We welcome innovative ideas and feedback to reinforce our efforts, so please feel free to reach out if you’d like to contribute to a more sustainable Echoes from Agartha.

Echoes from Agartha x Erguvan