These days, Coldplay approaches touring “as a traveling R&D lab,” says longtime manager Phil Harvey — and the band continues Music of the Spheres The tour feels a bit like a stage acting as a science experiment. There are compostable wristbands, biodegradable confetti and stationary bikes that fans on the floor can ride in the middle to generate energy in the production's smaller C stage.
Five years ago, frontman Chris Martin said Coldplay would not tour until they could ensure stadium dates would “have a positive impact” on the environment. Now, thanks to the numerous green innovations that have been implemented since then Music of the Spheres kicked off in 2022 — including not only the aforementioned measures but also renewable batteries and routing that reduced air travel — the band achieved a 47% reduction in carbon emissions for the first year of the tour, with a goal of a 50% reduction by the time will be rolled out in November.
Like a growing number of artists, Coldplay relied on a team of scientific experts to devise a plan for a greener tour that would be both mammoth (7.7 million worldwide tickets sold to date, according to Billboard Boxscore) and meaningful. . “For the number of artists we've talked to, the interest and appetite for understanding is pretty good, and it's exploded in the last three years,” says Professor John E. Fernández, director of Environmental Solutions Initiative (ESI) at MIT, who helped certify Coldplay's carbon emissions results and has also worked extensively with dance major Above & Beyond.
The group also linked up with Luke Howell — a former solar engineer who founded the British sustainability consultancy Hope Solutions and previously worked with Glastonbury festival. Howell and Hope's team studied the band's past tours “to identify key areas where we could reduce emissions,” he says, and then created a set of goals while recommending emerging green technology for the trip. “We don't always get it right,” Harvey says of Coldplay's ongoing efforts, “but we pass on what we learn so other people can do it better next time.”
Ahead of the opening Music Sustainability Summit, held in Los Angeles in February, ESI announced a comprehensive study of the tours' carbon footprint, expected to be completed this summer. Recommendations will be made — though Fernández says there's still a long way to go. “I would describe the music industry as risky,” he says. “It's a business and artists are trying to make a living, so we've seen a huge concern about the risk involved in making a commitment to reduce emissions.”
Prof. John E. Fernández
MIT
It's one thing for a venue like Coldplay to make sustainability a requirement for playing live, but the majority of artists don't have that financial luxury — or even a standardized emissions benchmark to shoot for. Michael P. Totten, who has served as Pearl Jam's climate science advisor for more than two decades, says, “The biggest problem we face is that [no artist] he is in control of everything” — in short, even a great act cannot cut through all the red tape of living industry. “You'd like to work with green arenas,” he says, “but they're owned by someone else, they're doing a lot of events, and they might say, 'You've got to talk to the ticket sellers.' “
So far, the artists who effectively green their touring practices tend to be the ones with the means and drive to do so—and whose tours often leave the biggest footprints. Totten points out that Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard helped promote the band's pledge to donate $200 per ton of carbon on its tours — but he did so based on scientific recommendations, not law or an industry-wide target .
Marcus Eriksen, a marine scientist who has partnered with Jack Johnson to spread awareness about plastic pollution in the oceans, believes change needs to start with more mainstream artists showing awareness of various environmental issues. “You want to find people who can reach a much wider audience,” says Eriksen, who has led several ocean expeditions to help educate celebrities like Johnson about how much plastic is in large bodies of water. Such personal experiences can, he says, help participants identify an urgent issue and encourage them to spread the message back on land. “Getting people out on the field for a direct experience — that can be transformative,” says Eriksen.
While standard green guidelines may not yet exist for the live industry, Howell says he'd like to see more solar and renewable energy incorporated into tours, as well as “electric vehicles and fossil-free fuels for all trucking and goods”. Fernández also says the music industry needs to stay in close contact with the scientific community on the latest climate change predictions to make any real progress. “Everybody in the music industry has to accept the fact that we're not going to stay [at] 1.5 degrees Celsius average surface warming,” he says, referring to the temperature limit that was the original target of the 2015 Paris Agreement. plan”.
With this in mind, Fernández emphasizes that artists must remain open to evolving information about climate change, even at the risk of repeating pre-existing sustainability promises. “This is not unique to the music industry – what we're seeing is some companies making climate commitments, feeling bad about not being able to deliver on them, and then going silent,” he says. “Artists cannot go in this direction. It has to be part of inspiring people to take action.”
This story will appear in the March 30, 2024 issue Advertising sign.
from our partners at https://www.billboard.com/business/touring/coldplay-pearl-jam-sustainability-science-experts-initiatives-1235643012/
