With dedicated industry initiatives and major artists pressing for change, music touring has made waves when it comes to greening its practices. But as always, the reality is more complex than it seems
Words David Davies
T he live music industry has a sustainability problem, and you don’t have to look far for data for proof. In the UK alone, it has been estimated that the sector releases 405,000,000kg of CO2 every year, while some live events can yield as much as 100,000kg of solid waste. It’s an untenable state of affairs that has not been lost on musicians themselves, as the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) acknowledged in a 2022 article that alluded to the ‘growing number of musicians who are using their celebrity to cast a spotlight on climate change, pollution, species loss and other environmental perils’. In addition, UNEP sustainable lifestyles expert Garrette Clark indicates that the live music industry is especially well-positioned to affect broader change as it ‘influences the hearts and minds of people around the world’. Meanwhile, the imperative for a notoriously carbon-intensive industry to achieve profound change grows ever stronger. The latest report from UN agency, the World Meteorological Organization – the Provisional State of the Global Climate, published at the end of November – indicates that 2023 was about 1.4°C above the pre-industrial 1850-1900 baseline. This now takes the world perilously close to the 1.5°C target established by the 2015 Paris Agreement to stand a chance of avoiding the more catastrophic effects of climate change. We’ve taken a look at some of the organisations and artists working to deliver a sustainable vision for touring that charts a course to net zero – much of the time with impressive results. But as Becky Hazlewood, environmental sustainability project manager at Julie’s Bicycle – a non-profit that mobilises the arts and culture sector to take action on the climate, nature and justice crises – indicates, there’s a long road ahead: “We have a lot of solutions and there are people who are leading on this, but overall there’s a lot more to be done.”
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