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Clean & Green - BDO Statement
10th January 2008
The current World population is 6.6 Billion and growing rapidly.
Energy consumption is off the scale and we’ve been warned that “peak oil” is due to set in, in a decade.
There have been alarming temperature increases in Alaska, Greenland and Siberia with widespread melting of the ice shelves.
Global warming due to release of greenhouse gases is official! At last we are beginning to understand that our civilization is in danger and that we need to do something about it before it’s too late.
Finally, we the people of Australia are beginning to take action. The first act by the newly elected Rudd government was to ratify The Kyoto Protocol on 3 December 2007, following New Zealand’s fine example in 2002. But what can we do on a more local and individual level?
BDO and Carbon Emissions:
Prior to the 2007 show, Big Day Out conducted two energy audits of the show to understand the Greenhouse Gas emissions caused by our energy usage.
We made a commitment to take the show “Carbon Neutral” as a consequence and have this year planted 6,750 Eucalyptus Polybractea (Blue Leaved Mallee) on approximately 4.5 hectares of land at Narromine in central NSW.
These trees are permanent plantings on farm reserves and produce oxygen and carbon stocks calculated using a model developed by CSIRO which is consistent with the technical guidelines provided by the Australian Greenhouse Office. The credit is recouped over a 30 year life span.
Our Carbon Credit provider is CO2 Australia and they are managing the trees on our behalf.
As we have said before, the reason we have chosen tree plantation for creating carbon credits is because it creates jobs, has sound conservation benefits, reduces soil salinity and improves farm viability in marginal areas as well as converting greenhouse gas CO2 to oxygen for us to breath.
An energy audit of the 2008 show is currently underway and our commitment to a Carbon Neutral Big Day Out Event into the future remains steadfast.
What you can do individually:
Big Day Out encourages music fans to be enviro-friendly. As an audience member you can offset your own carbon emissions and we encourage you to calculate your own energy consumption associated with coming to the show and pay the equivalent value towards tree planting or renewable energy which will then offset your own emissions.
To calculate your emissions:
We recommend these offset providers, they have good calculators, the are reputable and they provide quality offset products:
See photos of our tree plantings and of established CO2 Australia plantings.
   
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