Can Touring Truly Go Green? Five Takeways from SXSW London

Artists including Coldplay, Billie Eilish, Massive Attack and The 1975 are at the forefront of efforts to reduce the climate impact of their live performances, panelists said. Coldplay has reported that carbon emissions — from show production, freight, band and crew travel — on the first two years of its Music of the Spheres Tour were 59% less than its previous stadium tour (2016-2017) on a show-by-show basis, with its figures verified by the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative. Eilish has partnered with REVERB to reduce the environmental footprint of her touring. Massive Attack’s hometown show in Bristol last year set a new standard for low carbon emissions by being fully battery powered and selling only vegan food, one of several such initiatives by the group. At London’s O2 Arena in February of last year, The 1975 worked with A Greener Future, CUR8 and venue manager AEG to remove a reported 545.9 tons of carbon from the atmosphere over its four-night stand.

Despite the almost daily drumbeat of dire news about the state of the climate, when it comes to how touring practices must change, “The majority of people in the music industry are not focused on it,” said Bruford at ATC Live. “Not enough people are having that discussion.” And when artists or their teams do ask how they can reduce the carbon impact of tours, they are doing so “too late in the day,” saiid O’Neill of A Greener Future, when the scale of production is set and shows are routed.

Three of the panelists — O’Neill, Stevenson of CUR8 and Booth of AEG — were involved in the ground-breaking move last year by The 1975 to not only reduce the carbon imprint of their live show but remove carbon from the atmosphere during the band’s four shows at the O2 Arena. “It’s amazing what can happen when you apply a cost to carbon,” said Booth, explaining how The 1975 made decisions affecting everything from the merchandise available at the shows to the food at its concessions, with an eye toward carbon impact at the shows in February 2024. A small surcharge on tickets paid to offset the cost of carbon emissions from fan travel. At the time, the O2 announced that the concerts drew upon “a portfolio of carbon removal methods to physically extract the carbon generated by the events from the atmosphere and durably store it out of harm’s way — a game-changing step on the path to helping the global live events industry reach genuine net-zero.”

As much as artists may be concerned about the future of the climate, “These guys are busy creating art,” said AEG’s Booth. For that reason, suggested ATC’s Bruford, “That’s where the [artist’s] team needs to step up. I think it comes down to the managers, the agents, the tour production” staff to raise the topic of reducing a tour’s climate impact very early in the planning process. “It’s our responsibility to say to the artist, ‘We can do this!’”

Despite the massive energy required to transport and stage a major concert tour, panelists agreed that the greatest climate impact of the live music business comes from fans themselves traveling to shows. For her summer U.K. tour, Eilish partnered with Trainline to offer discounted train tickets for fans who travel to her shows by rail. For Stevenson of CUR8, even as his venture focuses on removing carbon from the atmosphere, giving up travel for concerts “is not a life well lived on a planet well loved,” he said.