Sustainability

For more than 20 years, Lucerne Festival has been committed to social sustainability, in particular to supporting young talent. Through the Lucerne Festival Academy, a variety of prizes for emerging artists, and the Debut concert series, the Festival has always been committed to future generations and will continue to do so in the future.

Alongside social sustainability, in Lucerne Festival additionally set itself the goal of systematically and proactively integrating and institutionalizing ecological and economic sustainability into its operations. To this end, a new position focusing explicitly on sustainability was created in the fall of 2022. Lucerne Festival has moreover since 2021 been part of “Swisstainable,” Swiss Tourism’s sustainability program, and has been classified as “Level II - engaged” since 2024. Furthermore, it has been a member of the “Sustainability Working Group” of Swiss Top Events (STE) since 2022.

As a first step, Lucerne Festival developed a long-term sustainability strategy in 2023. It follows the United Nations’ (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and is based on a materiality analysis to identify the sustainability aspects that are particularly relevant for Lucerne Festival and that can be changed, as well as on a comprehensive calculation of the CO2e footprint in the ecological area, which was carried out in cooperation with myclimate for the years 2021 and 2022. The sustainability strategy contains measures, guidelines, and targets for the period from 2023 to 2027.

The sustainability strategy and the CO2e targets it sets are evaluated on the basis of the annual calculation of Lucerne Festival’s CO2e footprint. This annual report documents the results of the evaluation and explains the sustainability projects carried out and measures implemented, as well as their results. It not only provides an overview of the past year but also shows the steps and goals planned for the current year in the various dimensions of sustainability (social, ecological, economic). You can find our latest sustainability report here:

• Pilot project “Music for Future: The Podcast” made by and featuring children and young people from the Lucerne region
• Introduction of the new 40min Open Air concert format to increase the accessibility of classical music
• Visit to the Children’s Hospital of Central Switzerland by participants of the Lucerne Festival Academy

• Expansion of the commitment to the area of inclusion, in particular through accessibility measures and improved information on the Festival website
• Continuation and expansion of the “Music for Future: The Podcast” project

• Reduction in total emissions by 9% despite the addition of a new festival (the Piano Festival) (Details in the Sustainability Report 2023)
• Sing-along event “Sing für Vögel” (together with BirdLife Lucerne) to raise awareness about the endangered situation with respect to bird populations; donation of CHF 15,000 to the hedge-planting project “Hedges for Red-backed Shrikes & Co.”
• Planting of 1,000 bushes as a habitat for insects and birds in Pfeffikon in the canton of Lucerne (together with BirdLife Lucerne)

• Implementation of various new measures to reduce energy emissions
• Carrying out maintenance work to preserve the hedge planted by Lucerne Festival in Pfeffikon/LU

Even before the 2023-2027 sustainability strategy was drawn up, Lucerne Festival was already striving to promote regional added value, for example through

• Awarding contracts to regional service providers wherever possible
• Frequent cooperation with local event venues and organizers

Every year, Lucerne Festival generates economic, tourist, and cultural added value for the Lucerne region (quantified at around 22.6 million Swiss francs for 2015 in a study by the University of St. Gallen [HSG]).