Since the day it was founded, the Sustainers Culture and Ecology Association has maintained a hands-on ecological practice alongside its cultural work.

We collect organic waste, produce compost and worm castings, and grow saplings with the fertiliser that comes out of it. That work has taught us the concrete meaning of a concept that usually stays abstract: waste is not a substance that exists on its own. It is the name a resource takes when it isn't directed to the right place.

The Sustainers Film Festival was born as the cultural counterpart of that approach. We see a structural resemblance between a film falling out of circulation and organic matter going to landfill: in both cases the issue is not a loss of value, but a failure of direction. The festival's programme takes up that observation on the cinema side. This piece is about the other side of the coin — how the festival itself operates.

We treat the festival as a production process of its own. A two-day event generates transport, catering, printed material, decoration, technical installation and waste. It would not be coherent for a festival that talks about sustainability to leave those items outside the discussion. So we count the organisation itself as part of the programme, and we set out with the commitments below.

Catering and single-use products. We are building our catering arrangements to phase out single-use products step by step. Reusable or compostable alternatives take priority, and we record the items that remain unavoidable.

Returning organic waste to the soil. Suitable organic waste generated over the course of the festival will be directed into the association's existing composting infrastructure and returned to the soil. Part of the festival's physical residue will therefore re-enter production.

Printed material and use of resources. We produce printed work only to the extent it is genuinely needed, and we design signage, wayfinding and display materials so they can be reused in future editions.

Local supply and transport. We prioritise local partnerships in procurement. We treat distance not only as a budget line but as an environmental cost.

Measurement and reporting. We will collect data on each of these points: the volume of waste separated, the organic matter returned to the soil, the quantity of printed material produced, and the proportion of local supply. After the festival we will publish these figures in a public impact report.

Zero waste is not a place you arrive at in two days. It is a route based on measuring, and on going further with every edition. We take the first step on that route at CerModern on 7–8 November 2026, and we invite you to be part of the process.

Nothing in cinema is single-use.