5 Things We Learned at 2025 Music Sustainability Summit: From Greener Merch to a K-Pop Eco Push

During a panel on the role production plays in fostering sustainability, the conversation focused on the importance of planning and how processes become progressively less sustainable when things are rushed.

“It’s the timeline that kills us,” said Mickey Curbishley, the president of live productions at Solotech, which hosted the event. “[When] everything gets put to the last minute and we end up air-freighting instead of sea-freighting, or we end up air-freighting instead of sticking things in trucks to move it around. It’s very, very expensive, not only financially, but for the planet.”

Curbishley continued by stressing the importance of making every decision-maker in a production aware “that every decision they make at every step of the way has consequences…I don’t know how many artists really know that the decisions they’re rubber stamping have any consequences, really, besides those that affect them personally. There’s nothing bad about that; we’re not accusing them of being unaware, but I think it’s our job to just keep reminding people of the consequences of the decisions they make, whether it’s the products they choose [or] what the timelines are.”

The discussion cited the example of moving gear for a tour from China to Europe, with Curbishley noting that while flying these materials is obviously more time-efficient, it creates 2.5 times more emissions than shipping by ocean freighter. “The sea container will cost $15,000 and take a few weeks,” he noted. “A 747 will take $1.5 million….and that’s going to eventually trickle down to the cost of the ticket.”

A breakout session on waste management at concerts and festivals brought up many interesting points about ways that producers divert and deal with a deluge of garbage. AEG’s vice president of sustainability Erik Distler noted that the company’s 20,000-capacity Crypto.com Arena in downtown Los Angeles employs a full time sorting team that opens every bag of refuse created at its 250 annual events, with this team sorting refuse into recycling, reuse, waste and compost streams. Distler also noted that the venue must provide organic waste (i.e. compost materials) following the passing of SB 1383, a state bill that requires every California jurisdiction to provide organic waste collection services to all residents and businesses.

Moderated by Michael Martin, the founder of re-use company r.World the panel also featured Donna Westmoreland, COO of I.M.P., who spoke to the challenges the company encounters in operating its portfolio of venues that includes Merriweather Post Pavilion. When asked, she noted that genre wise, indie rock fans are the best when it comes to participation in venue re-use programs, with country being the worst “and everything else kind of in the middle. The drunker the customer, the less likely they’re going to do it.”

Westmoreland also noted that one of the biggest pain points in waste management at venues is backstage. “One of our biggest challenges has been trying to get the crews not to have grab and toss water bottles,” she said. “We’re working on providing a selection where you pick your water bottle type, whether it’s a pour a straw, a squeeze whatever, you can pick it and take it with you. It will have the 9:30 Club brand on it and hopefully they’ll use them. But that’s a big challenge for us.”

Distler emphasized that artists are crucial in terms of creating change at venues, citing Jack Johnson as an example of an act who said he’d only play AEG’s Cali Vibes festival if certain sustainability measures were enacted. “Artists can make demands,” Distler noted. “[Johnson’s team] didn’t tell us what we needed to do, but they got on the first few calls and made us present to them. That allowed us to tackle everything from energy waste and water to artist engagement and management … the artist’s influence is paramount.”

A panel on rethinking merch focused on how artists can select from sustainably sourced materials to provide fans with superior, long-lasting items that will become keepsakes rather than ending up in a landfill.

Jillian Clark, founder/CEO of Roboro, discussed how the company has worked with Chappell Roan to transition her existing merch to be more sustainable and ethically sourced.

“One of her big priorities was to really enhance her fans’ experience,” said Clark. “She didn’t want to just be asking her fans for something, ‘buy my merch.’ She wanted to be providing them with something, whether it be a service, an experience, an emotional connection to her products. She also didn’t want to just be putting more ‘brandfill’ out into the world, more just into the world.” Clark said that Roan, her team and Roboro first worked on shifting Roan’s famous “Midwest Princess” camo trucker hat with the orange stitching.

“It was 100% polyester,” Clark said. “We switched over and resourced a 50% cotton, 50% polyester hat, so still not perfect, but a small step and what her existing supply chain could keep up with in the quantities we needed.” Clark also discussed a plan to work with vintage clothing brand Beyond Retro to sell vintage clothing at Roan’s concerts, with the move being not only sustainable, but personal, given Roan’s oft-expressed affection for thrifting.

DeMille Halliburton, the principal at EPIC Entertainment and Sports — which provides insurance for live events and mass gatherings — noted the importance of events securing insurance early, before bad weather strikes.

“When it comes to weather, you want to bind coverage well before hurricane season, because once a storm comes out and it’s named, it’s automatically excluded (from coverage),” Halliburton noted. He added that as extreme weather upends an increasing number of live events across the U.S. and beyond year after year, bookers and promoters are also getting savvier about routing.

“What we’ve seen a lot especially this past year… is that artists don’t have dates in the Southeast during hurricane season. During fire season they don’t have dates in California and those areas. When an underwriter looks at that, they look at it more favorably and the rates are better because they know the team is putting together a tour that has that in mind.”

One of the final presentations came from 18-year-old South Korean K-Pop fan Nayeon Kim, who helped start an initiative called KPOP 4 PLANET . Kim told the audience that the project’s goal is to engage one of K-Pop’s biggest fan contingents, young Asian woman, to demand more sustainable practices throughout the industry. This includes the eradication of greenwashing in brand deals, the transition to 100% renewable energy for South Korean DSPs and the discontinuation of marketing campaigns that encourage fans to buy many copies of the same album in order to collect the merch inside, given how much waste this practice generates. Kim told the audience that more than 880,000 people have signed the various KPOP 4 PLANET petitions thus far.