Polluting private jets, excessive dressing room demands and
arena-busting tours are no long sustainable, according to the biggest
study so far on the effect of the live music industry on our
environment.
In recent years, musicians such as U2, Kasabian and Madonna have been
criticised for the size of their carbon footprint due to the huge scale
of their tours. Notwithstanding Sting's personal enviro-activism, his
group, the Police, was recently condemned as "the dirtiest band in the
world" in an NME survey, because of the size and length of their 2007
reunion tour.
The report, which will be published in May, is the first to map the
carbon footprint of live music – from platinum-selling rock stars and
orchestras to theatre groups and pub bands. Although it doesn't name
and shame, it does blame performers for releasing about 540,000 tonnes
of greenhouse gases every year – the amount emitted by a town the size
of Great Yarmouth in Suffolk.
Music agents, promoters and managers met in London yesterday to discuss
how the industry can clean up its act but still make money.
The study was produced by Julie's Bicycle, a not-for-profit company
which was set up specifically to research the music industry's carbon
footprint. It maps everything from the number and size of tours, right
down to the greenness of the band's rider or list of dressing room
demands.
The study's suggestions range from fans car-sharing to get to gigs to
bands leaving their Lear jets in the hangar and letting the train take
the strain. It is also recommends that band T-shirts be ethically
produced.
The organisation looked at 90 artists' tours around the UK, Europe, US
and Asia. It then interviewed dozens of people working on them.
Some bands have led the way in revealing the environmental impact of
their tours. Radiohead have produced an audit of two of their tours in
the US and made it publicly available. Other green champions include
Sheryl Crow, John Legend and Coldplay.
Jazz Summers, the chief executive of Big Life Management and a founder
of Julie's Bicycle, said at yesterday's event: "There is a lot of fear
around the music industry getting greener. There's a real fear that
it's going to cost the industry money. But that's why we're doing this
report – like anything else, it's about information."
By Paul Bignell, The Independent UK, Sunday, 14 March 2010
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Imagine U2 clambering on to a train to take them to a sold-out stadium; Keith Richards swigging from a bottle of organic, Fairtrade booze while Bon Jovi recycle their post-gig waste. Unlikely as it sounds, it may yet come to pass as rock'n'roll's tradition of painting the town red fades to an ethical shade of green.
