Greener Approaches to Temporary Event Infrastructure
You can always tell when someone new to outdoor events asks about sustainability, because they usually start with the same question: “Isn’t it hard to make temporary structures sustainable?”
And for years, we understood why people thought that.
Temporary builds, by their very nature, seem wasteful, here today, gone tomorrow. But when you’ve worked in this industry long enough, you realise something important.
Sustainability isn’t about permanence. It’s about responsibility.
And responsibility travels with you from site to site, structure to structure, year to year, build to build. We’ve watched this shift happen slowly, then all at once. Clients asking smarter questions. Crews adopting new habits. Suppliers rethinking their materials. Whole event teams considering energy, waste, ground protection and transport as part of the build, not as an afterthought.
This isn’t because someone forced their hand. It’s because the industry began to understand that good sustainability is simply good practice.
Energy, The Quiet Transformation
We remember the first season where power strategy became as important as the build sequence.
Gone are the days of oversized generators running at low load, humming away from dawn to dusk. Event managers now ask:
- How much power do we actually need?
- Can we split load to avoid unnecessary fuel burn?
- Can battery storage cover quiet periods?
- Can we use hybrid or HVO-powered systems instead of traditional diesel?
And the best part? These aren’t pipe dreams anymore. They’re practical tools that improve efficiency and reduce cost while lowering emissions. We’ve stood on sites where a clever power strategy cut fuel use by half and made the operation safer by reducing heat, noise and unnecessary equipment movement. Sustainability rarely announces itself loudly. Sometimes it’s just a quieter generator and a cleaner skyline.
Waste, The Discipline of Leaving No Trace
If you want to see how an event really runs, visit the site the morning after load-out. Some events leave behind scars, litter caught in grass, forgotten materials, the remains of hurried crew decisions at 2am. But the best-run sites? They look almost untouched.
We’ve worked on shows where waste planning was handled with military precision. Colour-coded systems. Clear segregation. Crew briefings that didn’t treat waste as a chore, but as part of professionalism.
We’ve learned something along the way:
The less waste you generate, the more efficient your build usually is.
Sustainability mirrors good logistics.
Materials, Choosing for Durability, Not Disposal
There is a misconception that temporary means disposable. It doesn’t.
Good infrastructure is engineered to last:
- Marquee skins designed for years of heavy-weather usage.
- Aluminium frames endlessly reusable.
- Flooring systems built to travel thousands of miles a season.
We’re seeing more clients ask about lifespan, reuse cycles, repairability.
And rightly so. A well-chosen temporary structure can outlive most permanent installations built today. Longevity is sustainability in disguise.
Ground Protection, Respecting the Land Beneath the Event
One of the biggest shifts we’ve seen is the attention given to the ground itself. Because fields hold memory.
You can’t pretend a 30-tonne build didn’t happen. But you can minimise the impact.
Trackway systems, geotextiles, low-impact ballast, temporary roads, all of these protect not just the event, but the landowner’s future income. And after enough seasons, you begin to see the ground as the first stakeholder in every event. If you look after it, it looks after you.
Transport, The Hidden Carbon Cost
This one often surprises people, but transport is the biggest sustainability factor in most outdoor events.
- Not the marquees.
- Not the staging.
- Not the power.
It’s the trucks, the vans, the crew vehicles, the supplier miles.
We’ve been part of events where smart scheduling reduced transport emissions more than any other measure.
- Fewer runs.
- Better sequencing.
- Regional suppliers.
- Shared logistics where crews combine deliveries.
If sustainability is about being smarter, not perfect, this is where intelligence pays off.
The Real Shift Is Cultural
Sustainability used to feel like a box-ticking exercise.
Now, it feels like a conversation, ongoing, evolving, led not by regulation but by pride in the work we do.
- Crews care.
- Clients care.
- Authorities care.
- The public definitely care.
And in that shift, something meaningful is happening. Temporary event infrastructure is no longer viewed as an environmental burden. It’s being reimagined as a responsible, circular, adaptable system that can improve year after year.
Your Turn
If you’ve seen sustainability done brilliantly on an outdoor event, or if you’ve made a small change that had a big impact, share it. The more ideas we exchange, the faster we move as a community.
Events bring people together. Sustainability ensures we can keep doing that for generations.
