How Sustainability and Coachella Fit Together

Sustainable practices are finally joining more tours and shows. 

Sustainability should be an initiative that is incorporated into every artist’s tour and every festival weekend. 

Sustainable practices are the best, and only, way for humans to give back to our Earth. Since concerts and festivals emit tons of pollution into our air, taking a sustainable stand allows us to fight against these polluters and help the environment. 

As a member of Movin’ On’s sustainability team, I feel it is my duty (and honor) to educate everyone on some of the sustainability trends and initiatives taking place in the music industry today. 

Festival season is right around the corner, with Coachella kicking things off in just a few days. Let’s see what Coachella will be doing for our planet this year. 

Global Inheritance are the sustainability company that Coachella has worked with for over two-decades to ensure they focus on sustainability and giving back to their communities. 

Coachella will be focused on limiting their water and energy usage this year. 

Planning on traveling to Coachella by car- how about Carpoochella-ing with friends? Coachella Valley can be easily reached by public transportation, riding a bike or carpoochella-ing with friends; all are safer choices for our planet. 

Any of the leftover food from the food-truck vendors and VIP chefs gets donated to the Coachella Valley Rescue Mission and the Galilee Center. Coachella saves over 56,000 pounds of food from being thrown into the landfill, and instead feeds thousands of meals to those living in the area surrounding Coachella Valley. Sustainable choices help everyone. 

Any of the leftover camping supplies like sleeping bags, foldable lawn chairs, tents and bedding or clothing are collected by volunteers and are then donated to charities or homeless shelters in the area. By doing this, Coachella has diverted 79,000 pounds of supplies from landfills and now they are receiving a second chance at life through the charity shops or shelters. 

Reusable water bottles are encouraged to be brought onto the festival grounds. Prizes are given to those who bring a reusable water bottle as a ‘thank you’ for choosing to be sustainable. 

All of these are a great start for Coachella to become a sustainability-forward music festival. 

At Movin’ On 2026, you will see a lot of similar efforts to Coachella, in terms of sustainability. 

As always, please bring a reusable water bottle to the festival and feel free to fill it up at the UPUA sponsored Water Buggy! Our sustainability team will be hard at work after the show to ensure all the trash and recycling are sorted into their correct piles. This ensures that we divert waste to their accurate places and focus on our 100% recyclable mission. 

A new initiative in the coming years will be backstage composting of our hospitality meals and aluminum water bottles for our team and performers throughout the weekend. 

We cannot wait to continue working on our sustainability initiatives and see them in full force at the festival on May 1st!

Continue to make sustainable choices, like Coachella and Movin’ On, and let's make our environment a safer place for us all!