This year, SXSW went green... or tried to, anyway.

Festival organizers partnered with Green Mountain Energy and Ecology Action of Austin to cut down on carbon emissions where it could.  All waste generated from outdoor events at the festival was to be recycled. Generators and production trucks all ran on biodiesel. Of course, not all emissions could be cut out. So for the remaining parts, SXSW purchased carbon offset credits to make up the difference. 

And all of that is well and good for a festival hosting over one thousand bands (and the 1000 vans, cars, and tour busses that those bands bring, not to mention countless others driven by the fans attending the festival). But they're not doing all they can, according to Carbon Crusaders.

"They are purchasing renewable energy credits to offset the conference’s emissions – now standard for any conference wanting to brand itself as “sustainable”. They are also however, consuming the equivalent of acres and acres of trees in useless promotional materials - the life blood of sponsorship commerce that drives these events."

 So while the festival may have paid close attention to their own waste, they clearly didn't extend the favor on to the hundreds (if not thousands) of sponsors. The convention center down here is littered with piles of promotional material, some piles literally three feet high. A quick scan of the flyers, magazines, stickers, and postcards yielded very few that identified the use of post-consumer waste.

If SXSW is so serious about making their festival sustainable, they should encourage -if not force - their sponsors to do the same. Companies are vying for access to the music fans who perenially descend into Austin for these ten fateful days in March, and a little bit of prodding in the name of the environment wouldn't hurt anybody.