Big Green Coach celebrates 15 years with investment & expansion
The UK’s largest, most sustainable events travel company plans next stage of journey
Green by name green by nature, Birmingham based Big Green Coach is a far cry from traditional transport companies. Proud of its friendly, approachable brand and loyal team; the company this year celebrates its 15th year and prepares for the next 15 years, with a brand and website refresh plus expansion of the marketing, social media and operations departments.
Formed in 2009 by directors Danny Newby and Kevin Green, Midlands based Big Green Coach set out to make the festival and live events industry more sustainable. The company began after Danny and Kevin were made redundant from National Express, where they had been doing a similar role organising coach transport. They used their redundancy money to set the business up.
15 years on, Big Green Coach has fulfilled the pledge that all services would be Carbon Neutral by 2023. With the client base growing and expanding across B2B and B2C sectors the brand is preparing for the next stage of growth. In 2012 Big Green Coach was asked to provide services for the London Olympics taking on management duties at what was the largest transport hub in Europe; marking it’s first venture into non music event work
Then came the official partnership as coach supplier to Tottenham Hotspur, followed by a ten year travel partnership with Live Nation – the world’s leading live entertainment company comprising four market leaders: Ticketmaster, Live Nation Concerts, Artist Nation Management and Live Nation Media/Sponsorship.
Danny Newby who co-founded Big Green Coach with Kevin Green, explains the humble beginnings of Big Green Coach, which is now the UK’s largest and most sustainable events travel company:
“When we started Big Green Coach from my lounge, we were – and still are – extremely focused on the environment; so we wanted the word ‘green’ in our company name, and felt that ‘big’ gave a sense of scale. It wasn’t named after Kevin Green as some might think. When we started out, we planted a tree for every coach we organised. Then we planted two trees for every coach.
“We then began working with an organisation called Cool Earth. For every customer who booked travel with us we sponsored and protected five square feet of Amazonian rainforest for ten years. Doing this resulted in over 1,200,000 square feet of rainforest in Peru being protected by Big Green Coach for the next decade since it started the commitment. This focus on growing and protecting trees is in addition to the benefit the Big Green Coach has on the environment by further promoting coach travel as a greener alternative. Among the festivals we serve, 80% of these events’ total emissions come from audience travel. With shuttle services, we try to get electric buses where we can.”
Fifteen years later Big Green Coach works with ecolibrium, a UK charity founded in 2015 as a live events industry response to the climate crisis, following COP21 climate talks in Paris and research showing that audience travel accounts for around 80% of a typical greenfield event’s overall carbon emissions.
ecolibrium works with hundreds of organisations, artists and individuals to tackle travel emissions; moving low carbon travel to the heart of live events culture and uniting events in environmental restoration with investment in ecosystem protection, regeneration and clean energy generation.
As of 2022 ecolibrium have helped their 150+ members balance the equivalent of over 32 million travel miles with investment in ecosystem protection, regeneration and clean energy generation; planting over 46,600 trees, protecting over 16,900 acres of rainforest and 10 community benefit renewable energy projects.
Big Green Coach is the UK’s largest carbon-neutral event travel provider. The carbon neutral transport company has confirmed 674.5 tonnes of carbon will be balanced for 2023 with UK charity ecolibrium, via a five figure donation to ecolibrium’s Trees+ programme. Since joining forces with ecolibrium in 2021 Big Green Coach has balanced over 1500 tonnes of carbon.
The company not only organises the coaches, but crew at the venues to assist, unload and load luggage. In addition to coach travel to the festivals from peoples’ home towns, Big Green Coach organises shuttle buses in and around the events. These are high volume, low distance services, often making use of double-deckers for bigger tours and festivals.
Danny added: “Each festival is a year long project. Once one festival finishes, tickets go on sale for next year’s. To effectively serve these festivals and other events, Big Green Coach has a massive supplier list. Operators are approved and trusted by us and we are adding to the list all the time. We look for operator partners that share a similar green agenda and embrace new technology. It’s different to a standard transport service; we are much more of a service and the drivers recognise they are the face of our business.”
The carbon neutral transport company has confirmed 674.5 tonnes of carbon will be balanced for 2023 with UK charity ecolibrium, via a five figure donation to ecolibrium’s Trees+ programme. Since joining forces with ecolibrium in 2021 Big Green Coach has balanced over 1500 tonnes of carbon.
About Big Green Coach Limited
Big Green Coach Ltd, a pioneer in sustainable transport with 15 years of industry expertise, specialises in providing official transport services for large-scale partners such as East West Rail (EWR) and Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, as well as for major UK tours with some of the biggest artists in the world and most major UK festivals. The vehicles Big Green Coach uses to deliver these services range from 8 to 100 seats. Big Green Coach prides itself on affordable, personalised service and professional drivers, offering reliable, sustainable staff and consumer transportation solutions.
The carbon-neutral transport company has confirmed that 674.5 tonnes of carbon will be balanced for 2023 with UK charity Ecolibrium via a five-figure donation to Ecolibrium’s Trees+ programme. Since joining forces with Ecolibrium in 2021, Big Green Coach has balanced over 1500 tonnes of carbon.
For further information on Big Green Coach transport solutions please contact [email protected] or visit www.biggreencoach.co.uk