Burning Man wouldn’t be Burning Man without a few flames. But setting fire to artwork at the festival in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert is not without its issues.
In a Medium post from July 2019, festival organizers announced plans “to become carbon negative, sustainably manage waste, and be ecologically regenerative by 2030.” Although Burning Man already employs a “leave no trace” philosophy, wherein organizers and attendees remove all debris from the desert after the festival, there’s plenty more that the festival can do to be more sustainable. The festival has calculated that its carbon emissions are a staggering 100,000 tons for the seven-day event.
