From learning to action

Across the sessions, festivals explored where they can have influence and how to work with others to drive change, even in areas outside their direct control. A recurring theme was the importance of keeping things flexible and focusing on high-impact areas, rather than trying to do everything at once. The programme helped participants recognise that not having full control over a situation does not mean they cannot influence it — by working with others, change becomes possible.

As a result, festivals are sharing knowledge internally and consolidating it in processes and manuals for future editions. Many are also reviewing their frameworks to better integrate social, environmental, and inclusion considerations together, rather than treating them as separate workstreams.

On the operational side, participants are strengthening collaboration across teams, suppliers and partners, and piloting concrete innovations: solar energy, replacing single-use plastic, rethinking food provision, and improving waste management. Several festivals are going further, actively working to regenerate public spaces — reconnecting communities with nature as a cultural right.

Festivals are also rethinking how they communicate with audiences: finding new channels, creating new narratives, and opening new spaces for environmental conversations. And many are now integrating climate action into planning and design from the outset, so that environmental decision-making shapes events from the start rather than being added afterwards.

Perhaps the most tangible sign of the programme’s reach beyond individual organisations: Colombian festivals have begun building a network together, turning peer connections formed during the programme into something more lasting.

Through a partnership between Festival de Cine Lima PUCP and PeliSolar — made possible through the Cultura Circular network — Peru’s first mobile cinema powered entirely by solar energy is now reaching communities across Lima. Using inflatable screens, films are projected in public, open-air spaces with free admission, in the districts of Huachipa, Cantagallo, and Comas. The project also extends beyond the capital, disseminating cinema in a decentralised manner in Trujillo and Puno, decentralising access to culture and strengthening collective memory through audiovisual language.

How festivals are thinking differently

Several themes ran through the sessions. Collaboration and partnerships proved essential — festivals found that working with others, even when slower, opened doors that individual action could not. Inclusion and community participation emerged as central to meaningful climate action, not just operationally but as a values question. Across contexts, festivals are leveraging arts and culture to connect audiences with the environment in ways that policy or data alone cannot.

These shifts are already visible in practice. In Mexico City, Festival del Bosque adopted a preventive and strategic approach to environmental impact for the first time this year — moving away from reactive measures towards a model that minimises negative impacts and maximises environmental benefits from the outset. Working with an external certification scheme, the festival is now implementing efficient resource management, improved waste management, environmental awareness for attendees, and sustainability criteria across its entire value chain.

In Argentina, the V Festival Internacional MET in Puerto Madryn found that participation in the programme deepened its organisers’ commitment to socio-environmental stewardship and gave them practical tools to act on it. For Fundación Cultural y Educativa del Infinito, the festival’s cultural mission and its environmental one proved inseparable — theatre becoming a way for communities to know their city, care for the natural environment, and reflect on quality of life. As one organiser put it: