2025 Sustainability Report

Burning Man Project annual sustainability call on July 22 from 11am - 12:30pm PT / 2:00pm - 3:30pm ET.

On July 20, 2019, we published the 2030 Environmental Sustainability Roadmap and committed to three goals: 1) Handle Waste Ecologically, 2) Be Regenerative, and 3) Be Carbon Negative—all by 2030. We outlined clear milestones: establish baselines by 2020, pilot solutions by 2023, and begin wide implementation by 2025. Now, six years in and halfway to 2030, we’re in a transition between experimentation and scale. 

In 2024, Black Rock City theme camps, art installations, and mutant vehicles stepped up: 

620 theme camps (52%) stated they are working toward the roadmap goals.

727 camps (61%) used alternative power sources, including 603 (51%) that relied on solar. 

252 camps (20%) participated in a carbon dioxide removal and storage program. 

41% of Honoraria art projects demonstrated significant sustainability efforts.

187 mutant vehicles (26%) were electric, including 77 powered entirely by renewable energy.

These numbers reflect years of groundwork—from early adopters in the Alternative Energy Zone to community-wide efforts through the Green Theme Camp Community, BLAST, Green Corridor, and Renewables for Artists Team (RAT).

Goal 1: Handle Waste Ecologically. We’re seeing strong grassroots participation in this goal, especially in the Playawide Compost Program, which from 2015 - 2019 has collected 23K pounds of food waste from 22K people and prevented 202K pounds of greenhouse gas emissions. Since 2022, we have utilized over 278 cubic-yards of compost, from our food waste, into local land projects. We do not have centralized systems for measuring, diverting, and managing waste at the city scale. Burning Man Project collects, sorts, and diverts all waste from its infrastructure operations. As we wrote in the Roadmap this is a systems issue: 

Upstream, if we don’t buy or bring stuff to events that would eventually become trash or go into a landfill, we will solve this issue. Put simply: buying less and buying more carefully will make for less waste.

Goal 2: Be Regenerative. Fly Ranch has hosted 100+ campouts prototyping solutions for food, water, shelter, energy, and waste. Globally, many of the 100 Regional Network communities and 46 Burners Without Borders chapters are advancing regenerative work and ecological restoration in their local contexts. As we wrote in the 2021 Update:

In some ways, the path to being regenerative is clear: focus on the grassroots disaster-relief support, community initiatives, and ecosystem projects that Burners Without Borders (BWB) does, and integrate that work into our daily lives.

Locally we work to support the Numu (Northern Paiute) communities whose land we visit through collaborative events, as well as ecological and educational projects. 

Goal 3: Be Carbon Negative. The Net Zero Black Rock City initiative has made transformative progress  towards eliminating fossil fuel use on playa through mobile solar, batteries, microgrids, and biogenically-derived fuels. In 2024, we reduced or transitioned fossil diesel needs to power the Department of Public Works (DPW) grids by 50% and implemented the largest off-grid temporary energy storage deployment in the world. These projects and carbon dioxide removal are in line with what we planned in the 2030 Roadmap:

The most impactful changes we can make will come from producing our own power, ending the use of fossil fuels, and participating in an offset program that sequesters atmospheric carbon.

This call is a chance to align, accelerate, and build the next phase—together. We’re not just imagining a better future; we’re prototyping it, scaling it, and inviting everyone to co-create the systems and culture needed to reach our 2030 goals. Our MC is Director of Civic Activation at Burning Man Project Christopher Breedlove. He will introduce us to ideas, projects, and people leading our sustainability efforts:

Kooyooe Pa’a Guides Founder Autumn Harry who will speak about her work as a Fisherwoman, Land Defender & Indigenous Rights Advocate.

Black Rock City

Burning Man COO Heather White will introduce Director of Regeneration George Reed will speak about Net Zero BRC 

Associate Director of City Planning Bryant Tan will speak about Theme Camps and introduce a camp

DMV Council Member Patrice Mackey will speak about Mutant vehicles and introduce a mutant vehicle 

Regional & Global Projects 

Fly Ranch Operations Specialist Chris Andrews will speak about bees, compost, and gardening at Fly Ranch 

Julia Andresson will speak about the LAGI at Fly Ranch prototype of The Loop at The Borderland

Burning Man Project Co-Founder Crimson Rose will share her perspective on sustainability and Burning Man 

The next four years will decide whether we meet our goals. We’re ready, and we need you.