environment
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For decades, festivals have created weekendlong oases for music fans — and left a mind-boggling amount of waste in their wakes. But as artists and fans increasingly learn about their impact on the environment, eco-minded — and creative — organizers have started pushing to make festivals greener.
Whether headliner- (solar power) or supporting act-size (“Pee into tea,” anyone?), their ideas are making the live space more sustainable. Just imagine if they could all happen in one place. Below, Billboard digs into a look at the eco-friendly festival of the future.
Catch Some Rays
Illustration by Sinelab
Most festival stages are powered by generators burning diesel fuel, but advances in solar technology now make it possible to store and generate enough power to meet a major festival’s heavy energy needs. Late last year, Massive Attack announced Act 1.5, the first 100% solar-powered festival in the United Kingdom, with the help of solar panels and battery packs that store sufficient energy on site without needing diesel generators.
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It Takes a Village
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Tennessee’s Bonnaroo offers fans interested in sustainability a dedicated place at the festival to organize and learn about new green efforts proposed by its nonprofit division, Bonnaroo Works Fund. That includes the Roo Works cafe, where green entrepreneurs can pitch their ideas in a group setting; a nonprofit village where patrons can interact with green groups; a “learning garden” highlighting sustainable farming practices; and a volunteer program called Rooduce, Roouse and Roocycle.
Keeper Cups
Illustration by Sinelab
Single-use beverage cups are a major source of festival landfill waste. Companies like r.Cup have begun working with major promoters like Goldenvoice to switch to washable, reusable cups, which are collected each night and washed at a local cleaning center. In 2023, r.Cup’s program diverted 1.1 tons (roughly 30,000 cups per day) of waste from local landfills.
Plant Seeds of Change
Illustration by Sinelab
To offset the carbon dioxide emissions of large events, promoters are increasingly planting trees and creating forest reserves. Groups like the European Festival Forest focus their offset efforts in certain regions of the globe, like Iceland, while other organizers plant and restore forests at festival sites for future concertgoers’ benefit.
Making (Vegan) Concessions
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In 2022, Goldenvoice’s Cruel World Festival in Pasadena, Calif., launched the largest vegan and vegetarian dining pavilion for any festival west of the Mississippi, with 10 vegan and 20 vegetarian vendors offering items like maneatingplant’s vegan bao buns, dairy-free milkshakes from Monty’s Good Burger and plant-based sushi burritos from Oona Sushi.
Water Works
Illustration by Sinelab
Last year, Amsterdam’s DGTL festival launched an initiative to protect the site’s limited groundwater supply — it’s located within an industrial port in the city — by partnering with local sanitation companies to, well, “make tea out of pee.” By harnessing the same water purification technology that’s used to convert wastewater in space, DGTL created water reuse applications that will likely be expanded in the future.
Wipe Deforestation Out
Illustration by Sinelab
Festivals like Lollapalooza and Outside Lands have switched to bamboo-based toilet paper this year, not because of the material’s post-flush qualities but to help curb deforestation. Bamboo grows much faster than trees cultivated for paper products, and activists see it as a possible long-term solution to the developing world’s need for lumber, which is increasing in price as deforestation continues.
Start a Movement
Illustration by Sinelab
For its Music of the Spheres tour, Coldplay deployed a kinetic dancefloor, harnessing the crowd’s movement to activate LED lights and other visuals — and to generate electricity that was then routed to power elements of the production. On the tour, custom-made Energy Centers were also assembled in a circle for fans to generate energy by riding stationary bikes.
Wrist Watch
Illustration by Sinelab
Light-up wristbands are now common audience accessories on major tours (and at some festivals), though some activists worry about the waste they create. For its Music of the Spheres tour, Coldplay partnered with Canadian company Pixmob to make biodegradable light-up wristbands — the first of their kind — from compostable plant-based plastics. Now Pixmob only makes biodegradable wristbands, having done so for events like the Super Bowl and the Olympic Games and tours by Taylor Swift and Imagine Dragons.
This story will appear in the March 30, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Long before Billie Eilish became a global superstar, she says she was “notorious” among her friends for something else entirely. “When I would get a present, I would carefully undo the tape and carefully unwrap it and not let it rip and I would fold it up so that it could be reused — I didn’t want to destroy it,” she says with a sincere chuckle.
In the eco-conscious house where Eilish grew up, everything — wrapping paper included — was treated as reusable. In 2012, with the help of a government rebate program, the family transitioned its Los Angeles home to run on solar power. And, in 2014, Eilish’s parents, Patrick O’Connell and Maggie Baird, removed the grass from their front yard to save water. “Those were big moments for us,” Baird recalls. “We were excited.”
When Eilish, then in her early teens, started taking label meetings in 2016, her mother came along for the ride — for myriad business reasons, including keeping sustainability at the forefront of her daughter’s career. Baird recalls “begging” labels to provide more information about their environmental initiatives and policies, and often wondered why she and her teenage daughter were the ones who had to raise the issue in the first place. (Eilish signed with The Darkroom in 2016, an imprint of Universal Music Group subsidiary Interscope Records.)
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Today, Eilish and Baird are still talking about the environment — to much larger audiences than they were nearly a decade ago — while also leading the charge for the future of sustainability in music. In 2020, Baird founded Support + Feed, which aims to mitigate climate change and increase food security by encouraging the acceptance and accessibility of plant-based food, including at large-scale events like concerts. Eilish partnered with the organization on her 2022 Happier Than Ever tour, which, according to REVERB, a nonprofit dedicated to addressing environmental concerns in the music business, saved 8.8 million gallons of water by serving plant-based meals for the artists and crew.
And last year, Eilish helped launch and fund REVERB’s Music Decarbonization Project, which aims to ultimately eliminate carbon emissions created by the music industry. As part of the initiative, she partially powered her headlining set at Chicago’s Lollapalooza last summer with zero-emissions battery systems that were charged on a temporary “solar farm” set up on site. (In 2024, Willie Nelson’s Luck Reunion festival partnered with REVERB for a second consecutive year to power its main stage with 100% solar energy all day.)
Eilish’s sustainability efforts go far beyond her touring. In 2022, she worked with Nike to redesign the brand’s iconic Air Force 1 shoes to be vegan using vegan nubuck leather made with 80% recycled materials and 100% recycled polyester. More recently, in October she starred in a Gucci campaign that featured its classic 1955 Horsebit bag in Demetra, a vegan alternative to leather made from 75% plant-derived raw materials — a first for the brand.
“Yeah, we’re all going to die soon,” Eilish says matter-of-factly. “But we can try our best.”
Billie Eilish (left) and Maggie Baird at Overheated in 2023.
Jessie Morgan
Growing up, why was sustainability such a priority for the family?
Billie Eilish: It wasn’t even something I really thought about; it was such a normal thing. My mom started making these bags in these different types of beautiful fabrics and ribbons, and that’s how all of our presents were wrapped for Christmas and my birthday. When I would have parties, friends would come over and bring me presents in wrapping paper and I would be like, “Ew, this is so ugly.” We always used dish towels instead of paper napkins — everything was reusable, truly. And I didn’t even know it was weird. When I started dating, the people I was dating would be like, “Do you have any paper towels?”
Maggie Baird: You’re four-and-a-half years [younger than your brother], Finneas… [he] remembers [the] transition more. We always joke that my kids grew up in the house where you got the stink eye if you came in with a plastic bag or if you wasted anything.
Eilish: I even think to a fault sometimes, I’m so unable to just throw things away in the trash. If I get food out with a friend I literally have to separate everything. Like, it’s genuinely annoying. I wish I just didn’t care and could throw it all in the garbage and that could be the end of it.
When Billie was starting out, were there any blueprints for making a music career sustainable or were you making your own?
Eilish: There’s always somebody that paved the way for you, but I got to be real: It was bleak out here. We would be in meetings for things and my mom would [ask], “What are you guys doing to be more resourceful and conscious?” And they’d be like, “Oh, uh, well, you know…” They’d be tripping and stumbling over their words because they’re not doing anything. And it was kind of alarming to find that no one’s really doing anything to better the world. And the problem is, us people living in the world with no power — “us” in terms of anybody — we’re all like, “Oh, don’t use plastic straws. We’re going to use horrible, soggy paper straws to save all the turtles. And we’re going to get electric cars. And we’re going to not use blow dryers,” or whatever it is to save the planet. And then these giant companies are not even doing anything when they have so much more power. We’ve had a lot of conversations and people are trying, but even when they’re trying, they’re like, “Oh, yeah. We’re going to have that in 2026.” And you’re like, “Well, that’s not fast enough.”
Baird: It did feel bleak and very lonely in the beginning. When you’re a smaller artist and you don’t have any power and you don’t have any money, you just find yourself going, “Wait, why do we have all this plastic backstage?” Or, “Why are we driving this way?” Or, “Why are we doing this?” And the answer was, “Well, that’s just the way it’s done.” What really helped me was somebody said, “You need to talk to [Coldplay’s] Chris Martin.” They connected me on a call with Chris, which was amazing. Then Chris connected me to REVERB, and REVERB was a real game-changer for us. They had the ability to help us know what to change and how to communicate.
Do you recommend REVERB to new artists looking for sustainability solutions?
Baird: They do have resources for newer artists because in the beginning, you can’t really afford things and you may not be playing in venues that have a lot of flexibility. There’s a lot of organizations working in this space: Music Sustainability Alliance, Music Declares Emergency. If artists are interested, it does really start with them telling their teams that they care and that it’s foremost in their thoughts. From the beginning, it was about constantly asking questions until people [got] you the answers.
We, as a plant-based family, had all these catering conversations and it was not until Lesley [Olenik, vp of touring at] Live Nation was like, “Well, it sounds like you’d like all plant-based food.” We were like, “Can we do that?” And she was like, “Erykah Badu did.” It’s kind of just knowing what other people are doing. We do have green riders [for] dressing rooms, video shoots and photoshoots. I think those are really, really helpful and highly shareable.
Which of your strides in sustainability are you most proud of?
Eilish: The one that was seen by the most people was getting Oscar de la Renta to stop using fur when they made me a dress for the Met [Gala]. That was really important to me. It’s tough as a person who loves fashion. I’ve tried to be a big advocate of no animal products in clothing and it’s hard. People really like classic things. I get it, I’m one of them. But what’s more important: things being original or our kids being able to live on the planet and them having kids?
Baird: Also, the solar set at Lollapalooza was a huge moment. And Billie also made it possible for us to create two climate summits in London for her fans, Overheated, [which was held in 2022 and 2023]. Getting [London’s] O2 Arena to go fully plant-based for six shows [in 2022] was a monumental feat, and getting plant-based food in every arena on her [Happier Than Ever] tour was amazing. There’s so many amazing wins that Billie herself probably doesn’t even know. I think that the artist’s role is to champion [something] and say that’s what they want, what they believe in and [that they] want to make it happen. It’s the power that they have to say, “This is important to me, and it has to be a priority.”
Billie Eilish (left) and Maggie Baird onstage with panelists at their Overheated climate activism event in London in 2023.
Jessie Morgan
Have you seen labels make sustainability a priority?
Baird: I will say happily that Universal has really come a long way. We had three Universal Music Group Sustainability Summits last year, one in London, one in L.A., one in New York with just UMG employees talking about all the various issues. I used to be like, “Why are we the ones doing this?” Like, why is a 15-year-old girl and her mom talking about this? Why aren’t you telling us, why don’t you have all the advice on this? But gradually they have started to, which I think is really encouraging.
When it comes to pushing for impact over profit, have you experienced any friction?
Baird: Merch becomes a real issue. We look at sustainability in every single aspect: vinyl, packaging, transportation, food. But with merch, Billie is very particular about what her merch looks like.
Eilish: It’s about how it feels and how it looks and how it’s made. And so the problem is to make sure that my clothing is being made well and ethically and with good materials and it’s very sustainable and that it feels good and is durable. It’s going to be more expensive and that’s the thing: People can be upset by that. But I’m trying to pick one of two evils.
Baird: And Billie reduced the number of drops she does. Like, she just literally doesn’t sell as much merch.
Eilish: Sometimes people have the idea of when things are more ethical, they’re more expensive, and so it’s harder to be plant-based or environmentally conscious if you don’t have as much money. That’s the whole system we live in, of like, if you have less money then you have less resources [for] healthier food… And so what we’re trying to do is make it more universally accessible.
You’re working to make vinyl more sustainable. Happier Than Ever came in eight vinyl variants, but you use 100% recycled black vinyl — plus recycled scraps for colored variants — and shrink-wrap made from sugar cane.
Eilish: We live in this day and age where, for some reason, it’s very important to some artists to make all sorts of different vinyl and packaging … which ups the sales and ups the numbers and gets them more money and gets them more…
Baird: Well, it counts toward No. 1 albums.
Eilish: I can’t even express to you how wasteful it is. It is right in front of our faces and people are just getting away with it left and right, and I find it really frustrating as somebody who really goes out of my way to be sustainable and do the best that I can and try to involve everybody in my team in being sustainable — and then it’s some of the biggest artists in the world making f–king 40 different vinyl packages that have a different unique thing just to get you to keep buying more. It’s so wasteful, and it’s irritating to me that we’re still at a point where you care that much about your numbers and you care that much about making money — and it’s all your favorite artists doing that sh-t.
Baird: But to be fair, the problem is systemic, right? Because if Billboard, to be honest, is going to not have limits… I would love to see limits, like no more than four colors. Or some kind of rules, because you can’t fault an artist for playing the No. 1 game.
Eilish: I was watching The Hunger Games and it made me think about it, because it’s like, we’re all going to do it because [it’s] the only way to play the game. It’s just accentuating this already kind of messed up way of this industry working.
How have the industry and fan responses to your efforts shifted over the years?
Baird: You have this amazing power when you’ve got 10,000 to 20,000 people in a venue to see you, who get to hear from you, what you believe in and how you’re trying to change. That fan interaction is incredibly important. If you can educate them to know you can bring your reusable water bottle in and there will be water-filling stations, and there will be plant-based food and it will not be more expensive, and [to think about] how you get to the show and back — which, as we know, the biggest carbon cost is fan transportation. Then we’ve got to get the arena to understand people want these things.
We know from research that fans are more likely to take action if they believe the artist is authentic. Which I think unfortunately scares off a lot of artists because they’re like, “Well, I don’t want to say I’m trying to do X because I’m not perfect on Y.” That’s a barrier that is really challenging to break, especially with social media and the culture of cancel and hate. The truth is, you just have to do it anyway. Artists can cast a giant shadow of influence. If you’re not perfect, but you are influencing many, many, many people to do better, it’s multiplied hundreds of times.
Is there any other part of your career, Billie, that isn’t yet where you would like it to be in terms of sustainability?
Baird: You experienced major touring weather events in 2022 and 2023. We were in an extreme weather event in Mexico City that canceled the show and was quite dangerous. We’ve been in horrific heat. We’ve been in horrific smoke from fires. It’s just a reality of the business, and people have to start to take seriously that this is the biggest threat to touring.
Eilish: It’s a never-ending f–king fight. As we all know, it’s pretty impossible to force someone to care. All you can do is express and explain your beliefs, but a lot of people don’t really understand the severity of the climate [crisis]. And if they do, they’re like, “Well, what’s the point? We’re all going to die anyway.” Believe me, I feel that way too. But “what’s the point” goes both ways: “What’s the point? I can do whatever I want. We’re all going to die anyway.” Or, “What’s the point? I might as well do the right thing while I’m here.” That’s my view.
This story will appear in the March 30, 2024, issue of Billboard.
Lollapalooza increased its commitment to supporting environmental causes on Wednesday (Jan. 24) with the announcement of a new partnership with the conservation organization Re:wild. Beginning with the Jan. 27-28 Lollapalooza India in Mumbai this weekend, the global festival with outposts in Chicago, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, France and Sweden will team with the group co-founded in 1987 by leading conservation scientists and actor Leonardo DiCaprio to support Re:wild’s efforts by sharing environmental education through Lolla’s messaging channels, as well as on festival grounds.
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“In a moment when we need the world to come together to protect and restore nature as the most effective solution to the related climate and biodiversity crises, there are fewer greater convening forces than music,” said Wes Sechrest, Re:wild chief scientist/CEO in a statement. “We are excited for this partnership with Lollapalooza to bring visibility and support to the vital and urgent work of the communities and local organizations on the front lines working to ensure that nature thrives for the benefit of all.”
In addition to amplifying Re:wild’s messages on its social feeds, Lolla festivals will carve out spaces on their grounds for partners to speak directly to attendees, as well as supporting the organization’s projects with an as-yet-unspecified financial commitment. Lollapalooza has partnered with a number of environmental organizations to green the massive festival over the past three decades via the purchase of carbon offsets, free refillable water stations that have diverted millions of plastic water bottles from landfills, composting, recycling and food waste distribution and reusable cup programs among other efforts.
In a message to fans, festival co-founder and Jane’s Addiction singer Perry Farrell and wife Etty Lau Farrell said, “Solutionists, join us! We are thrilled to partner with our new friends at Re:wild, as we too love the land, the water, and all living creatures. Their commitment to healing the world is directly in line with the environmental awareness roots that were planted in the infancy of Lollapalooza decades ago. And of course, we still respond to the call of the wild!”
The festival’s flagship American show, Lollapalooza Chicago, received the Illinois Sustainability Award in 2017 and in 2023 Lollapalooza Berlin was the nation’s first festival to be certified as sustainable according to international standards.
Among the efforts undertaken by Re:wild over the past three decades are protecting and restoring mangroves, tropical forests, oceans and other ecosystems, as well as helping indigenous peoples attain rights to their lands and reintroducing endangered species. Click here to find some helpful suggestions for ways you can Re:wild your fridge, campus and your life and here to read more about the Re:wild Lollapalooza partnership.
Billie Eilish knows what it looks like when a famous pop star who flies around the world to play concerts for tens of thousands of fans starts banging on about saving the environment. She fully understands how hypocritical is can seem, but that has not stopped the 21-year-old global superstar from intensely focusing on reducing her carbon footprint and encouraging others to do the same.
It might also explain why the singer sat down with a group of highly motivated young climate activists for Vogue magazine’s first-ever video cover as part of a lively conversation filmed by Oscar-nominated director Mike Mills.
“I don’t want to be parading around like, Look at me! I’m making a difference. I just want to be making the difference and shutting the f–k up about it,” Eilish told the magazine for its January cover. “I shouldn’t be making any products. I shouldn’t be selling anything. It’s just more s–t to go into the landfill one day. I know that. But no one’s going to stop wearing clothes. No one’s going to stop making stuff. So I just do it in the best way I possibly can.”
Eilish said she tries very hard to to be “in people’s faces” about her environmental focus, knowing full well that fans don’t respond well to that and that it can end up hurting your cause. But she has been doing her part, which includes not flying private and setting up Eco-Villages at her 2022 Happier Than Ever tour dates in partnership with Reverb where fans can fill up their water bottles for free, register to vote and learn about environmental non-profits.
“I’m still not shoving information down people’s throats,” said the singer, whose efforts to reduce her footprint have resulted in 8.8 million gallons of water saved and 15,000-plus tons of CO2 neutralized according to a Reverb post-tour impact report that noted those figures are equivalent to taking 3,000 homes off the electrical grid for a year. “I’m more like, I’m not going to tell you what to do. I’m just going to tell you why I do this,” Eilish added, laughing, “But you’re also a bad person if you don’t do it.”
Eiilsh and her brother/collaborator Finneas, made a pre-recorded appearance at Prince William’s Earthshot Prize awards ceremony last month in Boston honoring those making efforts to restore nature, clean our polluted air and oceans and build a waste-free world. She also arranged for her run of shows last year at London’s O2 arena to coincide with the climate-awareness event Overheated, which was named for a song from her most recent album.
The Vogue climate summit found Eilish meeting with a group of activists all under 30, including 16-year-old Ryan Berberet, who led a climate strike at her California high school and whose led a campaign to pressure Gov. Gavin Newsom to declare a statewide climate emergency. Other attendees included 29-year-old Tori Tsui, a Hong Kong native who spoke at Overheated and whose book on the climate crisis and mental health, It’s Not Just You, will be published later this year by Simon & Schuster.
Also on hand were: Isaias Hernandez, aka “Queer Brown Vegan”; model/ Indigenous rights activist Quannah Chasinghorse; Fridays for Future organizer and Re-Earth Initiative cofounder Xiye Bastida; sustainable clothing designer/animator Maya Penn; Nalleli Cobo, who helped pressure Big Oil to close down a toxic well in her neighborhood; and Wanjiku “Wawa” Gatheru, a Rhodes Scholar and founder of Black Girl Environmentalist.
“I’ve really never gotten to talk to a group of people my age before that I agree with on so many things,” said Eilish. “It was so thrilling to talk to people that share my beliefs and are so smart, you know? They’re my age and they’re doing so much. It made me really, really, really hopeful.”
Cobo grew up in a South L.A. neighborhood just 30 feet from a toxic oil well that caused a myriad of health problems in her youth, culminating at 19 in a diagnosis of reproductive cancer that required multiple surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation that left her unable to have children. “I listened to ‘Everything I Wanted’ on repeat while filling out my pre-op paperwork,” Cobo said of the song from Eilish’s 2019 debut album that helped her get through the medical crisis. “Something about her music brings me peace.”
Though she was the only true famous name in the room, Eilish told the activists she felt like she didn’t deserve to be there, admitting, “I don’t know much. I’m just learning.” Penn, however, put the singer at ease, saying, “Billie’s excited to take her fans on the journey with her, which is something I feel a lot of pop culture figures are afraid to do. And she really pushes hard for something that I’ve always believed in, which is that it’s cool to care.”
The casual, but intense conversation found the singer and activists sitting on the floor and discussing the actions they’ve taken to lobby and push for climate awareness and talking about the impact of climate change on their lives and the planet amid vivid images of our natural world as well as the devastation caused by industrialization and human activity.
The chat also involved a check-in on the attendees’ mental health and feelings about climate anxiety in light of a 2017 report by the American Psychological Association and ecoAmerica that found that climate worry can lead to feelings of “loss, helplessness and frustration.” Or, in Eilish’s case, “it makes me want to barf all over the floor.”
In the end, Eilish said, the entire group wished they could make a change on their own, in their lives, that could help save the rapidly warming planet. “Grow my own food and live off the grid. Erase my carbon footprint,” she said, laughing at such lofty thoughts. “But all that does is erase me. When really, if every single person just did half of what they should do, we could fix this.”
Watch Mills’ 10-minute Vogue video below.