We’ve taken a shift from sustainable to regenerative. A necessary one.
To sustain is to make last. And in our current environmental state, longevity is bordering on romantic (ie. hopeless). For that reason, Lucidity Festival is pushing the envelope and shining a lasting light on the future of regenerative festival production. Here’s how!
1. One Ticket = Ten Trees Planted
The fine folks over at Trees.org have this vision: “To improve the livelihoods of impoverished farmers by revitalizing degraded lands.” It just so happens that quite a few others share a need to plant the seeds of regeneration and for that we come together.
For every Lucidity ticket sold there will be ten trees planted, courtesy of our beloved non-profit partner, and we couldn’t be more thrilled!
Why does this matter? Much of our current food systems are destroying our ecosystems. Farming as we know it falls victim to a short burst of produce followed by baren spells of empty fields.
To combat this issue, there are systems like Trees.org’s Forest Garden Program in place to systematically plant over a four year period proven to last.
2. Regenerative Action Day.
We’ve woken up to the reality of “sustainability” and put air quotations around its well-intentioned hopes of producing positive impact.
Now is the time for Regeneration Earth. The chapter where we actively restore and renew in an effort to reverse the damage already done from waste, pollution, and the many other environmental detriments that we ourselves are responsible for.
Where do we begin? Well…let’s start by taking action. Let’s dirty our paws and make room for roots to grow. Let’s be givers instead of takers. Let’s discover what it means to be regenerative and be of service when we can.
“If only there was a day to take action and learn about regeneration!”
“You mean like Lucidity’s Regenerative Action Day?!”
I’m so glad you asked! 😉
Regenerative Action Day is Lucidity’s pre-festival opportunity to deepen the participants connection with Live Oak and beyond. It serves as a meaningful start to the festival experience and a uniquely special way to engage with the festival in a purposeful and intentional manner.
Previously, Lucid University hosted the CourseWeek offering leading up to the festival weekend. This year we bring Regenerative Action Day, led by certified permaculture instructor and owner of Santa Barbara Organics Loren Luyendyk . Learn more here!
3. We Build With Sustainably Harvested Bamboo!
When roaming the grounds of Lucidity Festival you’d be hard pressed to overlook the bamboo that lays the foundation for so many of our environmental structures.
Lucidity has made it a point to use bamboo as a core material for many reasons; ranging from aesthetics to strength, and above all arriving at sustainably harvested materials.
Our bamboo comes straight from the jungles of Columbia. I’m not talkin’ 2-day shipping from Amazon. More like direct communication with our community collaborators in the amazon. That’s right! Straight from the source.
This is all made possible by our partners and friends: Collaborative Events.
When it comes to regenerative festival production, partnership is key.
That’s why “we have grown our bamboo building team and now contribute to many other events as another way we can be part of our community,” says Luke Holden, Collaborative Events Project leader and wearer of many other hats.
When we come to understand this relationship, building a better festival environment and contributing to other festivals makes our community even stronger. Not to mention more beautiful. Kind of like bamboo!
For more info about our bamboo building visit Lucidity Community and Collaborative Events!
4. Mindful Feeding, Mindful Sourcing, Mindful Everything
Feeding a Regenerative Generation
“This is the best I eat all year” is a common phrase overheard at the commissary and it couldn’t be more true. When you harvest and eat food that is so close to the source you feel it in your body.
Our Mindful Feeding Kitchen purchases from local farmers and has partnerships with the Santa Barbara Farmers Market and Isla Vista Food Coop ensuring that our food is local, organic, and seasonal. Oh yeah! Vegetarian too!
The food prepared with love provides the fuel that builds the dream in the thriving heart of our event, our shared dining table!
Anytime one sits down in the kitchen they’re starting a conversation around food, a community around food, and new habits around food that stay with them long after the festival weekend.
Sourcing a Regenerative Tomorrow
Massive amounts of water are poured into farming and is often wasted when produce cannot be sold.
So instead of throwing away unsellable produce, local farmers offer a program called Gleaning. We get to go straight to the farms and grab from the “scratch and dent” pile through this program!
By no means has the product gone bad or spoiled. No way! Farmers simply cannot sell produce that might be misshapen, for example.
Lucidity accepts donations from these sources, including the local farmers markets who don’t sell all of their supply! This continued local support builds strong, lasting relationships among some mighty wholesome, good-doing people.
Some of which even attend our festival! Next time your dancing down at The Nook it could be next to one or your local farmers or suppliers!
5. End Single Use! #Endsingleuse
Regenerative festival production means leaving the smallest footprint we can each time we gather for these cherished weekends. One way to do that is by utilizing all things reusable!
We’ve got an entire collection of #Endsingleuse gear including mugs, ToGoWare utensils, and Bamboo Straws! Grab yourself some Lucidity Artifacts here at our store.
The numbers used to describe how much plastic is wasted on water bottles alone has more zeros than I care to share. Reducing that number starts with us.
Bring your own cup instead of a 24-pack of water.
Invest in a dope utensil kit that can be your do it all camp set - not the superfluous box of forks and knives. And hey, that means a reusable straw too!
Help our partners in the process by showing up prepared with a Lucidity Regeneration Earth mug of your own as well!
We have some of the most delicious coffee ever over at Bonafide Nitro Coffee and Tea. The more often you show up with a cup, the less they have to hand out single use ones.
Like you and I, the Bonafide peeps care a lot about the environment as well. They use a disruptive technology which allows them to keg nitro coffee that can be stored at shelf stable temperatures.
What the heck does that mean?!
It means they’re reducing the energy consumed to keep kegs refrigerated. Genius!
6. Our Direct Impact Reduction Team (D.I.R.T) Makes a Serious…Impact!
One of the driving goals of impact reduction is deferring waste from landfills. By reducing and reusing before getting to the recycling stage, less waste is piling up in the perpetually piled trash graveyard that is landfill.
Photo by Foster Snell
We got the rundown on impact reduction from Lucidity’s guru on the subject at hand. Here’s what we learned from the mind of Nichole Schulz, Head of Sustainability and Food!
Leading by example is a wonderful and effective way we can show others how to apply a regenerative mentality.
At the end of the festival, Green Team volunteers sweep the grounds and lead a spectacular example of Leave No Trace. And what a beautiful site it is to see when attendees join the team in picking up trash simply because they want to help.
We can’t take all the credit for ourselves…
Lucidity is blessed with a conscious group of participants who do a darn good job of cleaning up after themselves.
Does trash get abandoned at the end of the event? Well, yeah.
The solution? One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
For example, when an EZ up is left behind (damaged or not) Lucidity will repurpose the pieces and either fix existing ones that we use during the event or Frankenstein together a new one!
What happens with all the waste that isn’t repurposed?
There are multiple dumpsters on site from setup to tear down: landfill, compost, and recycling. These puppies are 40yds in length. Yeah! Now get this…
The compost outweighs the trash! Say whaaat?!
These three main dumpsters stick around for around two weeks and the garbage one only almost fills up, which is crazy considering how many people are in attendance!
On the other hand, compost reaches the brim time after time. Our rockstar dumpster diving Green Team alongside D.I.R.T. defer waste appropriately and for that we are incredibly thankful.
There is a natural suck of energy in festivals. Our goal is to recognize this unfortunate detriment and offset the damage as best we can. The inevitability is unavoidable. Now we must actively give life back to our world.
The more we can be mindful of our impact the more successfully we can offset the damage.
Ask yourself, do you give more than you take from our ecosystem? In reality we take, but our vision is to change that.
PO BOX 6616, Santa Barbara, CA