A free public event for 16,000 people, measured end to end for the first time: 36.85 tonnes of CO2e across eight categories, 20.2 tonnes of waste with none of it to landfill, and nearly 15 tonnes of carbon avoided by changing one fuel.
Red Bull · Alexandra Palace · London, UK · 2024 · Sport and live events · Consultancy
Since 2024 Pie Factory has worked with Red Bull UK and Ireland across their flagship sporting events, from the near-vertical descents of Hardline in the Dyfi Valley to motocross at Tyne Ride and drift racing on Spike Island. The Soapbox Race is the largest of them by audience. Red Bull wanted to know the real footprint of an event of that scale, not an estimate, and wanted the answer in a form that could change how the next one was produced. That meant measuring what nobody in live events usually measures, and being prepared for the answer to be inconvenient.
Pie Factory worked on the ground across the event, gathering primary data from 40 suppliers, 17 food concessions and 75 Red Bull staff, then building the footprint from source data rather than benchmarks. Eight categories were measured: food, logistics, travel, accommodation, on-site machinery, energy, waste and water, each traced to its own activity data. Supplier sustainability was assessed, suppliers were upskilled in sustainable event delivery, a carbon tracking tool was built to automate the calculation for future events, and Red Bull's sustainable event guidelines were updated to embed the findings at every stage of production.
The answer was not the one anyone expected. Food came out at 67% of the entire event footprint, 24.7 tonnes of it served across the day, with red meat alone accounting for 15,042kg CO2e of a 36.85 tonne total. Logistics, the thing event producers instinctively target, was 15%. Energy was 0.6%.
That is an uncomfortable finding to hand a client whose event is free, popular and catered by seventeen independent concessions it does not employ. The value of the measurement is precisely that it redirects effort: a menu conversation with concessions is worth more than any amount of generator optimisation, and nobody would have known that without the data.
Total event carbon of 36.85 tonnes CO2e, the equivalent of driving an average car 184,250 miles. Food 24,736kg, logistics 5,543kg, travel 3,679kg, accommodation 2,013kg, on-site machinery 535kg, energy 215kg, waste 131kg. Zero waste to landfill across 20.2 tonnes collected, with 36.3% recycled. 6,028 litres of HVO biodiesel used in place of standard diesel, avoiding nearly 15 tonnes of carbon and bringing total generator emissions to 214kg. All 40 suppliers UK based, averaging 52 miles from site, with 17 local vendors employed for catering.
Scope excludes attendee travel and accommodation, and physical build structures, which were rented or reused. Supplier data received from 21 of 40 suppliers. Indicative, calculated in house, not independently audited.
Printed branding predominantly Akyprint polypropylene, 100% recyclable. Event T-shirts from regenerated cotton, saving 2,400 litres of water and 8kg of chemicals against a tonne of virgin cotton. Energy: Project Power. Waste: Teamwork Waste Management and Recycling. Water: Greens H2O. Recycling: Every Can Counts. Venue: Alexandra Palace.