Millions of fans around the world attend music festivals of various sorts and sizes, but few stop to consider the impact on the environment. The Green Music Group is hoping to change that, by implementing changes for both musicians and their fans.
Many musicians are often portrayed as denizens of excess when touring around the globe. Their heightened nomadic lifestyle parallels their rise with success, with demands often increasing as tours grow and expand. Their rise in popularity is mirrored by the legions of fans that attend their concerts. It’s only now that a few are starting to associate the significant impact such behaviour patterns have on the environment.
Music has often been used as a vehicle for performers to express their political views, and bring awareness to world concerns. From Woodstock and the Concert for Bangladesh in the late 1960’s/early 1970’s to Band Aid and Farm Aid in the 1980’s, and into the 1990’s with Lilith Fair, music has been used as a medium for raising awareness and prompting change. Today, more than ever musicians are banding together to weigh in on everything from human rights issues, to environmental disasters, and global warming,
Green Music Group (GMG) is a coalition of musicians, industry leaders and music fans that facilitates large-scale greening of the music community that is committed to global environmental action. Newly formed just over a year ago (January 2010), all aspects of festival operations are reviewed, from touring, venue and label standards, to transportation, riders, and grassroots communication initiatives.
One key element to their fast-paced road to success has been through establishing solid partnerships with various non-profit environmental groups, as well as getting fans to buy into the concept. GMG officially launched with a small gathering of artists, music industry mavericks, non-profit partners, and environmentally conscious fans. The intimate house party also included performance by founding musician members Maroon 5, Dave Matthews Band, The Roots, and Guster.
Guster guitarist/vocalist, Adam Gardner and his environmentalist wife Lauren Sullivan envisioned GMG as an offshoot of Reverb, which itself is already responsible for greening nearly 100 major music tours. In the spring of 2004, the couple followed the Barenaked Ladies and Alanis Morissette on their “Au Naturale” tour, reaching out to friends and peers in the music world who would share their passion. They found resources (Bonnie Raitt) and renegades (Barenaked Ladies) to help figure out how to make touring a greener experience. “It was the dichotomy between how I was living at home, and what life on the road was like with my band, that sparked the idea for Reverb in the first place”, explains Gardner.
Barenaked Ladies were the first band to take on the green challenge, and were matched with greening coordinators who took responsibility for recycling, composting, biodiesel fuel vehicles, and Barenaked Planet, an onsite village of eco-friendly vendors. Each concert also began with a global warning awareness video. Reverb is now preparing to “green” its 100th tour in 2011, having worked with other Canadian artists including Avril Lavigne, Arcade Fire, and most recently Drake on his first-ever tour as a headliner. “I feel like as musicians a lot of the time we underestimate the power of our influence and our voice,” Drake was quoted as saying during the tour.
Other performers have also been recognized for their achievements. Some such as Bonnie Raitt, George Harrison, and Willie Nelson have been doing it long before it was fashionable. Bob Geldof and Bono were the poster activists of the 1980’s, while it was ladies who ruled the 1990’s, with Sarah Mclachlan and Sheryl Crow leading the way.
Bonnie Raitt co-founded Musicians United for Safe Energy as a response to the Three Mile Island nuclear eruption in 1979, and performed five “No Nukes” concerts at Madison Square Garden along with fellow musicians. She continues touring today offsetting carbon emissions and using the highest grade of biodiesel fuel available. Willie Nelson actually created his own alternative fuel made primarily with soybeans, and his Farm Aid concerts celebrated 25 years of supporting family farmers in 2010.
Dave Matthews Band created the BAMA Works Fund and the BAMA Green Project to merge arts and the environment. The Roots created Jam Session as a forum for social activism, Green Day joined forces with the National Resources Defense Council asking fans to demand clean energy and green jobs, and Jack Johnson co-founded Kokua Hawaii Foundation to support environmental education in schools. KT Tunstall works to neutralize her carbon production by planting trees in her home country of Scotland, and donating to renewable energy causes in Sri Lanka.
Other ambassadors include Phish who started an outreach organization called Green Crew to help clean up their tours and educate fans how to travel using their recommended resources for organic food, ride-share programs, and eco-friendly lodging. Perry Farrell has greened his annual alternative Lollapalooza by adding Causapalooza, an environmental education love-in. He also joined forces with Doors drummer John Densmore and actor Josh Hartnett, to launch the Global Cool climate change campaign encouraging the reduction of carbon emissions. Don Henley founded Caddo Lake Institute to fund ecological research that protects the only natural lake in his home state of Texas, and Radiohead teamed up with Friends of the Earth on their most recent tour, while Sheryl Crow estimated the total carbon reductions on her last tour were equivalent to nearly 100 homes not using electricity for an entire year.
More recently, the much publicized and highly controversial BP oil spill became the focal point of a planned music festival about to take place along the ocean shore of Alabama. The Hangout was in jeopardy of not happening when the leak sprung less than three weeks before the event was scheduled. Instead of viewing the disaster at sea as detrimental to their planned beach party, the promoters switched gears and took it upon themselves to take action. The concert was dubbed The Concert of the Coast, and went ahead with an overall resounding message denouncing such avoidable environmental atrocities.
So as some musicians maybe viewed as harbingers of their own success, there are those that continue to be vocal about issues of concern. It just so happens that now they are viewing themselves through a mirror and making a conscious effort to change their reflection of the future.