Sustainability at Motel Mozaïque

We believe in an equal world. We care for the environment and the people around us, and we consider sustainability as striving for climate justice and social justice alike.

Decolonial Thought
The Motel Mozaique team realises that many modern day dynamics and societal systems are still very much rooted in colonial thought. We see the presence of this system of structural oppression – in its manifestations of (institutional) racism, sexism, validism, homo-, trans- and xenophobia, among others – in our daily lives, and significantly, in the industry we are a part of and have so much heart for. The music industry and the broader arts as a whole is not exempt from these oppressive systems; in fact, many of the power structures present in the industry benefit from them and therefore are incentivized to keep them in place – at the cost of artists and makers all around the globe. Through our privileged position as an established cultural institution, we also benefit from the aforementioned dynamics. However, we also have a significant platform, and therefore feel it is our duty to use it to contribute to positive change.

For these reasons, we dedicate ourselves, our time and our resources to doing what we can to dismantle these systems within our scope of influence. We do this through two main components:
1. Education – education of our staff and stakeholders, be it through courses on decolonial thought and white supremacy, through setting strict expectations for (potential) partners that serve to stimulate positive change, or through constant dialogue with our team to make sure decisions and policy are made collectively.
2. (Re)presentation – creating space for historically oppressed perspectives, sounds and cultures to present themselves on their own terms, so that our audiences can both discover unheard or unfamiliar voices, and see their own stories and backgrounds reflected in our program. Besides our programming, this commitment also extends to creating space within our organization for the development of emerging makers and/or industry professionals that contribute to a greater diversity and representation in the industry. 

Social Justice
Motel Mozaique aims to be an inclusive organisation in the broadest sense of the word, creating space for everyone who shares the values of equity and solidarity, and striving to always facilitate a safe and welcoming environment. This includes keeping a culture of inclusivity as close to our core as possible, in the physical, economical and cultural sense. 

Equity in access
Inclusivity in the economical sense means that we use our position and our privilege to facilitate as low a financial barrier to our events as possible. Culture belongs to and unites everyone, and we firmly believe that it is our job as a cultural nonprofit to ensure that no-one is denied access to culture due to their socioeconomic situation. During our yearly MOMO Festival, we organise Playground, a program consisting of a wide range of freely accessible events and concerts throughout the city. Additionally, we have our yearly campaign “Geef een Toegift”, where ticket buyers can choose to make a contribution, the proceeds of which are subsequently used to provide festival tickets for those who are not able to afford it. Since 2025, this action has been promoted in collaboration with Ticketbank, a platform that provides free tickets to cultural events to people who are registered at the food bank. Additionally, we’ve worked with parties like RotterdamPas, WeArePublic and various educational institutions, to provide other forms of discounted tickets over the years.

Physical accessibility
We aim to make our festival welcoming and accessible to everyone. To ensure this, we worked with Marianne Dijkshoorn of Welcome Accessibility & Events, who conducted a full accessibility assessment of the festival. As a result, we received their Certificate of Accessibility, having been evaluated on wheelchair accessibility, site layout, communication, inclusivity of the immersive experience, and safety for people with disabilities.

Each year, we provide a comprehensive list of accessibility features per location. We work together with our location partners to provide as many of these as possible. Some features we actively try to facilitate in our locations are adapted parking spaces, elevators, low-stimulus spaces, induction loop systems and wheelchair-accessible toilets. We are still actively learning and developing our accessibility policy and are open to comments, questions or suggestions. You can reach us at support@motelmozaique.nl for all things related to accessibility. 

Safety
As the safety of all our visitors is a top priority, our code of conduct and general terms and conditions play a central role in all our events. We believe that we are collectively responsible for each other, and we rely on an engaged and informed audience in order to achieve this. Our code of conduct is reviewed every year to incorporate feedback from the previous edition of the festival, improving our approach to social safety on a yearly basis.

At the same time, we recognize that audience engagement alone is not enough to ensure the level of safety our visitors need. That’s why we provide a trained social safety team, consisting of floor angels and door hosts. Guests who feel unwell or unsafe can approach our floor angels, identifiable by their fluorescent vests, at any time across all night program locations. These team members are trained in conflict resolution and social safety, and they actively monitor the dance floor for any signs of unsafe or inappropriate behavior. Our door hosts are present during the night program to welcome guests and go over the house rules before entry.

Climate Justice
As a non-profit festival and events organisation, we are constantly in search of new ways to reduce our impact on the planet, as well as to increase our impact on the culture around climate justice. In the past couple of years, we’ve introduced initiatives like the green token, where visitors could get a special discount on drinks if they travelled to the festival with public transport or bike; we stopped using all forms of disposable plastic during our events; we turned our organisation 100% vegan, from the office lunch to the festival catering; and we promoted a series of social activities related to sustainability, accessibility and more during our yearly MOMO Festival.

Beer
A notable partnership we’ve formed in this context is our multi-year collaboration with Kaapse Brouwers, focused on social and environmental sustainability in the beer production chain. What started as a shared ownership of a plot of land in the Voedseltuin, where we grew the ingredients that were eventually added to the first Kaapse MOMO beer, developed into a fully homegrown beer in 2025 where all the raw materials and ingredients for our collaborative beer were sourced from producers in the vicinity of Rotterdam. This achievement proved that it was possible to brew a super fine beer using hyperlocally sourced ingredients, with considerably short(er) chains and therefore being significantly less taxing in terms of ecological footprint.

Food
MOMO offers a climate-responsible menu during its events, where plant-based is the norm. We also work with a lot of local, seasonal and organic products and suppliers, such as Mixblik, Saru Soda and Pieter Pot. In 2025, we work with various initiatives:

• Wisselwaar supplies 100% organic food products in reusable packaging, which is returned afterwards.
• Local Tea supplies locally grown tea.
• For soft drinks, we use Saru Soda syrups mixed with tap water.
• De Buytenhof supplies us with locally produced fruit juices.
• The kitchen at Theater Rotterdam switches to 100% vegan during our festival.
• Retour de France supplies the wines both backstage and at our own bars. They supply wines in returnable bottles, which significantly reduces the CO2 footprint.
• Bakery Wij zijn Rotterdam supplies the biscuits for the dressing rooms and backstage.
• Sococo supplies the coffee and also serves it at MOMO Playground for our audience. They additionally supply our coffee-needs at the MOMO Office year-round.

We use food as efficiently as possible to prevent food waste, and we aim to inspire our audience to think about their daily consumption habits by framing and promoting planet-friendly food and drink options as a big part of the festival experience. Since 2022 we have implemented a 100% vegan policy at the office too.

Raw materials
MOMO is committed to reducing waste and optimising waste processing. We do not see our waste streams as unusable waste, but as raw materials with potential. We facilitate various collection points for raw materials at our own locations, and we support our public in the conscious separation of raw materials; think of clear signing, educational signs and the use of volunteers. Residual flows are used with as much value as possible in a new cycle.

Power supply and use
MOMO events take place almost exclusively at locations that are connected to the fixed power network. As a result, we are not required to use any local generators, like the highly polluting diesel generators often used for festivals. MOMO strives to run its events entirely on green energy, and we’re in talks with our location partners about how we can facilitate our events exclusively using green energy in the future.

Innovation
We consider our MOMO Festival as a testing ground to try out new greener approaches, be it in terms of production of installations, concerts, or works of art. We love to provide unique opportunities for makers to experiment with their innovation during our events, and are always open to new ideas. 

Mobility
Visitors, crew and artists are encouraged to travel by bicycle or public transport as much as possible. We work with local suppliers as much as possible, in order to limit the amount of transportation required, and we use electric vans to transport our artists’ production material.

Green token
During our yearly festival we use a green token, given to people who travel to our locations by walking, skating, using public transport or cycling. With this green token, visitors get their first drink for free, with which we aim to stimulate people to think about the forms of transport they choose to use, as well as rewarding people for helping to minimise our CO2 emissions – the emissions resulting from audience and crew travel account for around 85% of festival emissions  on average, making this an area where we can collectively make a big difference.

Sustainability deal
Started in 2022, the Sustainability Deal (Duurzame Deal) set out the ambition to achieve sustainable objectives over a period of three years. In collaboration with multiple organisations in Rotterdam and the municipality, we worked to reduce our collective CO2 footprint and we raise awareness on sustainable developments while doing so. Motel Mozaïque concluded the Sustainability Deal in 2025, together with the municipality of Rotterdam, eleven event organisers and Rotterdam Festivals.