Music and the environment

This a lengthy, but comprehensive look at what bands and other members of the music community are doing to reduce their environmental impact.

Among the tactics:

Using biodiesel in vehicles.
Buying renewable-energy credits.
Using solar generators.
Recycling materials and reducing the use of non-recyclables.
Encouraging more urban music festivals where fans can reach venues using public transportation.


The Austin Chronicle: News: How Green Is the Music?: Festivals, bands, and musicians seek environmental harmony: "[Una] Johnston took part in an internationally representative dais for the key panel discussion Greening the Music Industry. She was joined by moderator Neal Turley, an Austin local who improves the environmental profile of musical events with his company, Sustainable Waves, and operates three all-solar-powered stages that he helped design; Perry Farrell of Jane's Addiction and Porno for Pyros and the founder of the legendary Lollapalooza; Frank Mauceri, president of Chicago's Smog Veil Records, which is soon to be completely powered by on-site wind, solar, and geothermal energy; Rick Farman of Superfly Productions, which organizes the massive, jam-band-laden Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in rural Tennessee; Arnt Olaf Andersen, head of marketing for Oslo, Norway's biodiesel-powered, heavy-recycling Øya Festival; and Paul Diaz, owner of Atlanta's Tree Sound Studio, which has gone carbon-neutral in addition to helping bands produce albums in recycled and recyclable packaging.

'Science and technology are in a place now for the world to go though a major overhaul. What's lacking is a change of culture,' Farrell said. 'What I think the music community can do more than anybody else is inform people, act as a catalyst to change the culture,' all while making it 'fashionable, fun, and sexy.' Diaz noted that 'music has the unique ability to transcend cultural and political boundaries.' Added Turley, 'If music can get kids to wear their pants around their ankles, it can get them to clean up their lifestyles.' Turley and others are leading by example with their own increasingly eco-savvy events to create a new green standard in music – one they hope fans will take home from shows and replay throughout their everyday lives."