The first winners of the Greener Festival Award 2016 have been announced at ADE Green, part of the massive Amsterdam Dance Event.

Welcome to the Future, DGTL, Liberation Festival and Extrema Outdoors picked up their awards at an awards ceremony organised with Green Events Nederland.

To enter the award scheme, led by A Greener Festival, events submit a self-assessment, followed by an on-site independent inspection, post-event data gathering and a detailed report by the environmental assessor. The assessment forms the basis for the events Environmental Impact Assessment and is an important tool to help events to identify where improvements can be made, as well as celebrating the positive and successful existing actions.

A Greener Festival has assessed over 300 festivals over the last 10 years, and re-launched the Awards criteria in 2016. This year’s winners have also already added another 25 trees to AGF’s Festival Wood in Scotland, a deciduous re-forestation project managed by Trees for Life.

Ben Eddie, the AGF Awards co-ordinator, said: “I am thrilled to have represented A Greener Festival at the sold out fourth edition of ADE Green at De Brakke Grond, the perfect platform and a new partnership. I was even more pleased to have opportunity to meet familiar names from coordinating our UK & Europe awards for the first time this year.

“It was a real pleasure to present the Dutch awards to Liberation and Extrema Outdoor NL (both Commended), and DGTL and Welcome to the Future (both Highly Commended). It was an inspiring program and what better way to finish a packed day of workshops, presentations, and panels than by celebrating the successes of our first Award winners of 2016. It was also awesome too see such a mix of industry professionals, suppliers, and the next generation of festival and live event organisers and students in the same space. The future is now.”

The first 2016 winners:

Welcome to the Future (highly commended)

DGTL Festival (highly commended)

Liberation Festival (commended)

Extrema Outdoors (commended)