5 Ways to Green the Music Industry

Concerts like the Montreal Jazz Festival take a tollThe music industry is huge- hundreds of tours criss-cross the country every year, bringing celebration and escape to fans and leaving trash and trampled grass in their wake. Does it have to be this way? Some of it, yes. If you’re going to bring a world-famous guitar player into a field, you’re going to use fuel, energy and attract thousands of people.

But we can do it in a much more earth-friendly, sustainable, or green way- and it wouldn’t be that hard. I learned about an organization called Reverb recently- Reverb is a 501(c)(3) non-profit was founded in 2004 by wife-husband  team Lauren Sullivan, environmentalist, and Adam Garder, Guster guitarist. Reverb does everything from turn-key greening programs for full tours to grassroots outreach to education for music fans. They do a lot: so here are…

5 Ways to Green The Music Industry

1. Biodegradable Food and Beverage Supplies: At any concert the most ubiquitous items are those plastic soda and beer cups. If it’s a day-long festival, throw in forks, spoons and plates and napkins and you’ve got tons of trash. Make it all out of corn. It doesn’t solve the land use problem, but it’s an improvement over making it all out of oil.

2. Recycling: Sure, there are always recycling bins at concerts- but how well are they monitored and used? That’s what Reverb does. Is the band using them backstage? They are when Reverb is there.

3. Fuel: Reverb puts biodiesel in the tanks of the tour buses and stage gear trucks. Brilliant. Why not offer free spots to the bio-fuel manufacturers in the parking lots so they can fill people up on their way out of the concert? Make it cheaper than the gas out there and you’ve got 1,000’s of people who will love you for saving them time and money and think fondly back on how that eco-stuff ran just as good as regular gas. It didn’t even smell like French fries…

4. Carbon Offsetting: There are just unavoidable impacts that any concert or festival is going to have. Acknowledging them and planning to offset them, locally, is a good way to raise the awareness, motivation and activity levels around all of the other green initiatives that can have an impact on a concert venue or tour as well. And offsetting the actual emissions at a concert is a strong statement by an artist to their fans.

5. Education: People at music events are open to having new experiences. You’re feeling good, enjoying yourself and you’re with your friends. It’s the perfect time to have something new in green introduced. Most people won’t want to get a lecture or read something long, but they will certainly respond to a good message or a simple handout.

Why get in with Reverb? Quite simply, because it’s not hard and it works: They’ve reduced over 67,000 tons of CO2. They’ve greened over 80 major music tours. They’ve reached over 10 million fans. Now they are working with other Green Music Groups in a new organization and I’m excited to see how their message will spread through the music universe.

Photo Credit: Anirudh Koul (via Flickr under CCL)