The urban ecological transition and the future of Europe’s nightlife industry

ABSTRACT

The current climate emergency and the emergence of a stagflation scenario in Europe have revealed the scarce presence of environmental and resilience-related goals not only in the economic and financial viability plans of the nightlife industry but also in the different tools of nightlife governance already introduced in some European cities. In fact, the recovery and resilience plans of more than a third of the countries of the European Union, which constitute the central mechanism for the ongoing ecological urban transition, do not mention the nightlife industry nor the creative night culture, whose importance is vital for many urban festivals. Despite that, some nightlife entrepreneurs have begun to adapt their businesses to the current urban ecological transition in Europe. Meanwhile, a large part of the scientific community does not seem to be interested in the economic and environmental challenges affecting Europe’s nightlife industry. For the authors of this article, if nightlife is revealed to be central to the socio-emotional wellbeing of many people in our (post-)pandemic world, the “greening” of the nightlife industry should arise as a central topic in the short and medium-term for academics researching in the fields of tourism, hospitality, leisure, and urban studies.

KEYWORDS:

• Nightlife industry
• nocturnal cities
• climate emergency
• urban ecological transition
• Europe

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 For further information on Digital Safaris on Sustainability, visit: https://www.live-dma.eu/digital-safaris-on-sustainability/

2 For further information on Clubtopia, visit: https://clubtopia.de/sustainable-clubbing/

3 Ibidem

4 For further information, please visit: https://artsandculture.google.com/story/nwUBAEqtV1Iekw

5 It has not been possible to find the English version of the Austrian National Recovery and Resilience Plan. Information shown in the text has been retrieved from “Comission Staff Working Document. Analysis of the recovery and resilience plan for Austria; Accompanying the document “Proposal for a Council Implementing Decision on the approval of the assessment of the recovery and resilience plan for Austria”, European Commission, 21 June 2021. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:52021SC0160&rid=8

6 For reasons unknown to the authors and completely beyond their control, it was not possible to access the document in any of its language versions.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P under individual grant CEECIND/01171/2017 and Centro Interdisciplinar de Ciências Sociais da Universidade Nova de Lisboa. This work was also supported by national funds through FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P., within the scope of the project «UIDB / 04647/2020» of CICS.NOVA – Interdisciplinary Centre of Social Sciences.