Decathlon’s new pledge means your festival tent won’t go to waste

If you’ve ever walked out of a festival field on a Sunday afternoon, bleary-eyed and vaguely sticky, you’ll know the sight well. Row upon row of abandoned tents, sagging in the mud, left behind like sad fabric ghosts. Nobody’s proud of it. And yet, year after year, it keeps happening on a massive scale.

Decathlon has just launched its ‘No Tent Left Behind’ Pledge in Ireland for the first time, and it’s a genuinely smart idea for anyone who camps, festivals, or just wants to get a bit more adventurous with the kids this summer without the guilt spiral.

So how does it actually work?

The premise is refreshingly simple. You buy a selected Decathlon tent from the Quechua MH100 or 2 Seconds Pop-Up ranges, use it all summer long, and then return it to a Decathlon store in Ireland by Saturday 5th September with your receipt. In exchange, you get 100% of the original purchase price back on a Decathlon gift card.

Tents that are returned don’t go to landfill. They’re refurbished and resold through Decathlon’s “Second Life” programme, which means someone else gets quality outdoor kit at a more accessible price. It’s circular economy thinking made genuinely practical.

Decathlon’s No Tent Left Behind festival campaign.

The campaign was officially launched in Ireland by broadcaster and circular content creator Fionnuala Moran, and it arrives here as a dedicated pilot year, having already proven itself as a behaviour-change success in the UK, where it grew from a single-product trial into a full nationwide programme.

Why this matters more than you might think

Each year, hundreds of thousands of tents are abandoned at festivals across Europe. Many of them are cheap single-use buys that end up in landfill, carrying a plastic load equivalent to thousands of straws or bottles. It’s one of those environmental issues that’s easy to ignore in the moment but genuinely grim when you look at it square on.

For families, the pledge also does something else rather useful: it lowers the barrier to trying camping in the first place. If you’ve been on the fence about dragging the kids into a tent for a weekend, knowing you can return it at the end of the season for the full value back makes it a much less intimidating commitment. Give it a go, see if the kids love it (or hate it, which is equally valid information), and then decide from there.

Chris Allen, Director of Sustainability and Circular Economy at Decathlon UK and Ireland, put it well: “Irish customers are increasingly conscious of their environmental impact, and this initiative empowers them to enjoy the outdoors while making more responsible choices. It’s about changing habits, reducing waste, and making sustainable camping the norm.”

What tents are included and what do they cost?

The pledge applies to a strictly limited selection of entry-level festival tents from the Quechua MH100 and 2 Seconds Pop-Up ranges, starting from as little as €30.

To qualify, you must return your tent to a Decathlon store in Ireland with proof of purchase no later than Saturday 5th September 2026. For full details, visit decathlon.ie.