How to Make the Most of ADE Green: Five Tracks

This track is for artists, curators, and everyone curious how music, sustainability, and social change intersect. Begin your day with Essence: A Deep Listening Experience, a grounding entry point into the day’s themes. Next, Creativity in a Polarised World looks at how contextual tension shapes and limits creative work. Then dive into Music, Money, and Moral Lines, an honest talk on value systems, funding structures, and moral dilemmas, joined by Dan Lambert (Manager, Kneecap), Henk Willem Smits (Journalist, Follow the Money), and Ellen Evers (Festival Director, DGTL). Next-Gen Collaboration: How Artists Are Breaking New Ground With Nature offers fresh artistic perspectives on music production. End with Honest Climate Conversations, a listening showcase where 2 artists will tune into music and storytelling, and How 2025’s Wildfires Reshaped LA’s Music Community, a presentation by award-winning music journalist Greg Cochrane — both intimate, story-driven sessions that explore how art, nature, and resilience intertwine.

Start your morning on the move with Rethinking Festival Travel: On the Road to Zero, where industry experts and policymakers explore how to radically reduce travel emissions — one of the biggest challenges facing event sustainability. Continue with The Future of a Sustainable Festival Sector, a forward-looking session uniting sustainability pioneers Sanne Stephanson (Roskilde), Rob van Wegen (ESNS), Giada Calvano (Chloe Sustainability) and Claire O'Neill (A Greener Future), around what a truly sustainable scene could look like in 2030 and beyond. From there, Cross-Sector Partnerships for Changebrings together three cases that show what happens when unlikely allies join forces for a shared purpose. Then, AI for Impact delves into how new technologies can help map, measure, and accelerate sustainability strategies. The ADE Green Keynote: Embrace the Chaos invites transition expert Jan Rotmans to reflect on how turbulence can be a catalyst for renewal — if we learn to lean into it. Round off your day with What’s Next for Circular Festivals?, spotlighting real-world lessons from festivals that have worked towards circularity, and closed off by the general director of the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure & Water Management.

Begin with a moment of stillness in Essence: A Deep Listening Experience, a rare opportunity to slow down and reconnect through sound. Then join The ABC of Ethics: Accountability, Boycott, Change, presented by Amnesty International — a candid exploration of moral choices and responsibility, joined by Omar Barghouti (BDS movement), Floor Beuming (Amnesty International), and Jurry Oortwijn (Paradiso). Creativity in a Polarised World challenges you to think about whether creativity and sustainability can hold their place in times of unrest, while Music, Money, and Moral Lines zooms in on the growing pressure on the music industry to take a stand on corporate ethics, investment ties, and geopolitical injustices. Later, Rewiring Music Organisations for Social Impact invites Charlotte Edgeworth (Sony), Amy Van-Baaren (Resident Advisor), Paula Clark (Terminal 1, Glastonbury), and Sofia Ilyas (Beatport) to show how institutions can evolve from within. Close the loop with How 2025’s Wildfires Reshaped LA’s Music Community — a short presentation about loss, adaptation, and rebuilding creative ecosystems.

This route is for those steering organisations through complexity, for C-Level leaders & decision makers. Between sessions, there’s plenty of time to connect — the hallway conversations at ADE Green often turn out to be quite impactful. Start with The ABC of Ethics: Accountability, Boycott, Change, where business meets conscience, then move to Cross-Sector Partnerships for Change for tangible strategies on building new kinds of alliances that go further than visibility. The ADE Green Keynote: Embrace the Chaos offers perspective on leadership amid disruption — a must for anyone navigating transition. Finally, What’s Next for Circular Festivals? anchors vision in practice, highlighting what has been achieved in the past few years and what’s still lacking; with closing words by the general director of the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure & Water Management.

This path is for the all-round explorer looking to hear from industry experts and meeting other changemakers. It takes you across various themes, but be assured: with these programs, you will hear from leading voices in the industry. Begin with The ABC of Ethics: Accountability, Boycott, Change, move to The Future of a Sustainable Festival Sector, and continue with Cross-Sector Partnerships for Change. Then hear from ‘culture hackers’ at Rewiring Music Organisations for Social Impact, before moving on to Meet the Experts of Sustainability & Social Change — a speed-dating format to connect directly with the thinkers and doers reshaping our field. Last but not least: the ADE Green Networking Drinks. You might just meet someone who changes your perspective, or your next collaborator.