Education, Reduction and Advocacy

Telluride Jazz Festival is dedicated to keeping our environment clean and green. Join us in our commitment to ensuring a greener future for the Town of Telluride, our Festival and the planet.

The power of music to gather, evoke emotion and send a message is undeniable. At the Telluride Jazz Festival we’re committed to using the few days we have with our attendees and our resources to promote sustainability and environmental responsibility. The Telluride Jazz Festival puts the planet and sustainability as a top-tier of priority when doing business.

Through action and partnerships, we focus on waste reduction, environmental education and advocacy, energy offsets and earth celebration, with an overall goal to have the most positive impact as possible.

Reduction

The Telluride Jazz Festival has implemented the following programs to reduce our footprint at the festival and year-round

On-Site

No Single-Use Plastic Bottles

The United States uses roughly 50 billion plastic water bottles a year, and nearly 80% of them end up in the landfill. The Telluride Jazz Festival says no to single-use plastic water bottles, in-fact you won’t find one for sale in the festival. Instead we’ve built two free, convenient, easy to use water-stations in the festival grounds. Bring a water bottle or use a reusable cup, just say no to bottled-water.

No Single-Use Tasting Glasses and Compostable Beer Cups

Instead of using single-use plastic cups, the festival employs multi-use souvenir cups and compostable cups for beer, wine and cocktails at all festival bars.

Compostable and Recyclable Utensils

Every festival food vendor serves their food on compostable or recyclable plates and utensils reducing unnecessary plastic waste. We also utilize compostable dishware in the Patron Area and other festival catering areas. In collaboration with Eco-Action Partners, we were able to divert 62% of Compost and Recycling from our festival waste in 2018. We are committed to improving this diversion percentage in the future.

Compost and Recycle Stations

There are multiple staffed compost and recycle stations located throughout the Festival for proper waste disposal. Each station is manned by an environmental volunteer who helps determine if  trash can be recycled or composted.

Energy Efficient Pedestrian Travel

The Telluride Jazz Festival encourages attendees to carpool to Telluride, then park and leave their vehicle put for the weekend. With Telluride’s robust public transportation infrastructure this is a safe, simple and fun way to reduce carbon emissions. During the festival the Telluride Gondola offers free transportation to-and-from Mountain Village from 7:00 - 2:00 am each day. In town, the Galloping Goose offers complimentary rides on a 20 minute circuit, while the Wilkinson Public Library offers cruiser bike rentals.  

Year-Round

Low-Commuting Office

More than 75% of time, the festival’s full-time staff utilizes human-powered or public transportation options to commute to our office reducing carbon emissions.

The Telluride Jazz Festival has the goal of becoming carbon neutral and providing environmental education and advocacy over the next few years. To stay updated on sustainability happening at the Telluride Jazz Festival, sign up for our newsletter.

Education & Advocacy

Green Beer: Sierra Nevada Partnership

The festival is proud to partner with Sierra Nevada! Through use of renewable energy, biogas, sustainable building construction and more, Sierra Nevada is widely recognized as the most environmentally friendly production brewery operation in the world. Learn more about Sierra Nevada’s sustainability measures, click here.

Volunteers

Once inside the park, patrons find dedicated teams of environmental volunteers, helping to spread the green message by offering to take recyclables, filling water bottles at the filling stations, and helping fans to properly discard their waste in the correct bins near the vendor area.