Tackling plastic waste at festivals and events is key to our mission at RAW. That’s why we’re so pleased to announce a new and exciting partnership with the Association of Independent Festivals (AIF).
RAW Bottles is now the official reusable bottle partner for the AIF in a strategic move to continue to empower festivals to go plastic-free.
Our sister organisation, the RAW Foundation charity, and the AIF jointly produced the Drastic on Plastic campaign on Earth Day 2018. The campaign encouraged 60 festivals to pledge to eliminate single use plastic by 2021, and we are keen to keep up the momentum and offer simple solutions to help festivals achieve their goal.
How will the partnership work?
- As part of the new partnership, 10% of RAW Bottles sales made to AIF members will be donated to the Drastic on Plastic campaign fund to enable festivals to eliminate single use plastic.
- Many festivals have already made the switch to RAW Bottles, with clients including Glastonbury, Shambala, Port Elliot, Boomtown, Cropedy, Arcadia, Green Gathering, Greenbelt and Fire in the Mountain.
Paul Reed, CEO at AIF, says:
“We are delighted to launch this partnership with RAW Bottles. We recognise that water bottles are one of the biggest problems for festivals when it comes to single-use plastic, so it’s crucial that we recommend relevant suppliers of effective alternatives to our members. We’ve done the research and feel confident that RAW offers the highest quality reusable bottle and the most sustainable option. This partnership will also support RAW’s work around plastics on a global level and ongoing activity around the Drastic on Plastic initiative.”
Festivals can now sell now and pay later!
RAW Bottles has also developed a new purchasing model for festivals which either don’t have the funds to commit to a bulk order up-front or cannot predict how many they might need.
Our buy-on-demand option allows clients to take orders before committing and then purchase the amount they need/have sold to be delivered to their event for collection.
Joe Buirski, Fire in the Mountain festival, says:
“As a small festival it’s hard to commit capital to buy a significant amount of reusable bottles in advance. Buying RAW Bottles on-demand is perfect for us as we can put the bottles on sale along with tickets, gauge interest ahead of the festival and order the amount of bottles actually sold to either send out or pick up at the event.”
Why choose RAW Bottles?
The RAW Bottle is a simple solution and offers one key change that festivals can implement to help reduce pointless plastic.
- In 2016, some 480bn plastic bottles were sold globally – that’s a million bottles per minute or 20,000 per second.*
- Each reusable RAW Bottle sold typically helps to prevent approximately 167 single-use bottles from going to landfill per year.
- Our bottles recently won the Green Supplier & Innovation Award at the Showman’s Show, and we have just been shortlisted for the Green Supplier Award in the Festival Supplier Awards 2019; both recognising the bottle’s environmental credentials.
*Statistic from Euromonitor.
