UK: A Greener Festival, a not-for-profit company helping festivals, events and venues around the world adopt environmentally efficient practices, is making its environmental assessor training available to a global audience for the first time through a new short course offered with Falmouth University and CEG Digital.
The online course sits within Falmouth’s flexible and part-time MA in Creative Events Management, launched last year in partnership with CEG Digital – the blended learning division of global HE specialists Cambridge Education Group – and is now open for student applications ahead of an October start.
Established in 2007, A Greener Festival gives its quality award to festivals, events and venues which demonstrate sustainability with a significant focus on environmental impacts. It has assessed over 400 festivals, events and venues across five continents including in 2017 Glastonbury Festival (UK), Roskilde Festival (Denmark), Bayou Boogaloo (USA), Primavera Sound (Spain) and We Love Green (France).
The company needs to train more individuals who have knowledge of environmental management and sustainability issues, event management and a passion to help events to achieve the best possible environmental practices in every aspect of the event. These assessors – who provide independent site assessment, verification and certification of environmental actions – then undertake on-site visits before and during the event.
Previously assessor training could only be delivered face-to-face. Now, thanks to the innovative partnership with Falmouth University and CEG Digital, providing the assessor training online opens this out to become easily accessible from anywhere in the world, and its part-time nature means the two weeks’ worth of content can fit around students’ existing commitments. Students who are on the MA will have the added benefit of becoming Stage 1 A Greener Festival Assessors on completion of the course’s Sustainable Practice module. Those students taking the two-week course only will benefit from enhanced opportunities to study alongside the MA students, and network with these students from all over the world.
“Demand for the training scheme has grown since we introduced it last year and this partnership will help meet the global need for knowledgeable individuals and teams that can help festivals, events and venues reduce the environmental impact of their offer,” explained Teresa Moore, Director at A Greener Festival. “Through this collaboration not only are we are able to bring our training to Falmouth’s MA in Creative Events Management students and add real value to the programme but the partnership allows us to extend our training capability globally through the online platform and meet increasing demand for A Greener Festival training.”
Adrian Bossey, Head of Cultural Management & Production at Falmouth University who wrote the online-led MA Creative Events Management programme, said: “We are very pleased that from the success of our partnership with CEG Digital and our MA we are now also able to reach those people wishing to gain the skills and knowledge of environmental operations at events via this short flexible course. Developing and upskilling in-work professionals operating in the ever-evolving global events management landscape is at the heart of our work.”
Geoff Webster, Managing Director of CEG Digital, added: “This latest collaboration is an excellent example of what we do – working with top universities, unlocking their knowledge and expertise alongside that of key industry players to enable students from all over the world to access the education and training that the world’s markets need. This is one of a number of new courses at CPD, undergraduate and postgraduate levels that will be introduced in the coming academic years. By focusing on a university’s core skills – delivering excellence in education – and working with CEG Digital in their specialist area co-designing and co-delivering new models of learning, this approach addresses a growing student demand for flexibility combined with industry-focused education. It’s proving a hugely successful model.”
Falmouth offers five flexible, part-time Masters programmes: Advertising, Strategy & Planning; Creative App Development; Creative Events Management; Photography; and Writing for Script & Screen – which CEG Digital has helped to create, produce and market to students worldwide. In its first 12 months, CEG Digital also established partnerships with the University of Southampton, University of London International Programmes and Queen Mary University of London.
For more information about the MA Creative Events Management and the online A Greener Festival Assessor Training short course, and to apply directly, please click here.
