Concerts and Climate Change

As society continues to reckon with climate change, it has become evident that many activities that are universally enjoyed throughout our culture tend to have unintended negative consequences on the environment.  A prime example of this is music concerts.  While listening to artists with thousands of other fans in large arenas is an exhilarating experience for everyone involved, the logistics of concerts create a massive amount of waste and greenhouse gas emissions.  Bands travel across the world in carbon-intensive private planes and buses. The lighting and sound production of arenas demands high amounts of primarily fossil fuel energy.  Fans contribute to waste generation through consumption of single use plastics in food and beverage packaging.  For example, in 2017, the popular music festival Coachella generated 107 tons of waste a day while only 20% of that was recycled.  These are just a few examples of the many ways music and concerts can harm the environment. 

While there are many negative environmental repercussions from concerts, I firmly believe that the show should still go on.  Solving the climate crisis should not be framed as giving up all the very things that make the human experience unique.  Music is one of the world’s greatest unifiers and concerts are one of the main ways for people to enjoy the musical experience.  As a society, humans need to think of innovative and collaborative solutions that address sustainability issues in culture.  In the future, concerts should continue to go on and provide joy to millions across the globe, but the musical experience must be revamped to become more sustainable.

Analysis: There needs to be widespread and collective action between artists, fans, and venues to reduce waste and limit greenhouse gas emissions at concerts.

The three major stakeholders in a music concert, the artists, fans, and venues, all negatively contribute to the environment during a performance.  To make concerts more sustainable, all three groups need to take actions that reduce their environmental footprint.  Outlined below are various actions that each stakeholder can take in order to limit the negative environmental repercussions of concerts.

Artists – The areas that artists need to target in order to be more sustainable are travel and resource consumption.  As previously mentioned, musical artists travel across the world on tour in carbon-intensive private planes and buses.  Additionally, since artists are hectically traveling and performing, production companies commonly cater extravagant meals for artists and their crew before and after concerts, which create unsustainable amounts of food waste. 

Fortunately, there are many ways artists can make their concert routines more sustainable.  There are special nonprofits such as Reverb,­ that partner with artists to make concert logistics more sustainable. In regards to travel, artists should better plan concert tours to fly less and enlist hybrid or biodiesel powered buses to travel to venues.  Additionally, artists can work with venues to source catered meals from local providers to minimize the carbon impact of their food consumption.  Artists may also donate a portion of ticket sales to carbon offsetting projects to reduce the environmental impact of their concerts. Similarly to athletes, musical artists have the ability to use their large platform to raise awareness for environmental issues during concerts by incorporating important climate change messages into their routine.  

Venues – To make concerts more sustainable, venues need to address issues related to energy demand and plastic consumption.  Concert venues use massive amounts of energy for lighting, sound amplification, and other pyrotechnics.  While artists are jamming away onstage, thousands of plastic water bottles, sodas, and other beverages are sold to thirsty fans, creating a massive amount of single-use plastic waste.  

Venues can address these issues through investments in renewable energy and plastic mitigation techniques.  If venues install solar panels or purchase renewable energy from their local utility, they can drastically reduce their carbon emissions when compared to using energy strictly from fossil fuel sources.  On top of renewable energy investments, venues can take steps to eliminate plastic at concerts.  Various concert venues and musical festivals have taken steps to install water-refilling stations, provide biodegradable utensils with food, sell reusable bottles/cups, and limit the number of plastic products in the venue’s inventory.  All of these actions can drastically curtail the amount of plastic and waste at concerts.

Fans (How You Can Help) – Fans also contribute to the carbon emissions of a standard musical concert. Thousands of people have to commute from their respective homes to the concert venue, and for most arenas, a substantial percentage of fans rely on carbon intensive cars to travel to the concert.  As discussed in the venues section, fans also purchase a variety of food and beverages that are primarily supplied in single use plastics.  

There are simple actions that fans of concerts can take to reduce their environmental footprint while enjoying their favorite artist perform live.  One action is to take public transportation or carpool to the venue.  Riding with others, or via public transportation, reduces the number of cars traveling to the concert and in turn, the amount of carbon dioxide emissions. Additionally, fans can make a conscientious effort to properly recycle and dispose of plastics at a concert or refrain from buying plastic products at all.  

Conclusion

It is important to emphasize that the path forward to creating more sustainable concerts requires artists, fans, and venues to all take action.  If any one of the artists, fans, or venues decides not to cooperate and reduce their environmental footprint, the marginal gains made by the others to reduce their environmental impact will be offset.  For concerts to truly become more sustainable, it will require a concentrated effort from all three groups.  

While music concerts may not be a major cause of climate change, they do have a negative environmental impact and are a major fixture of human culture.  However, the music industry can use its immense influence and platform to create large scale change by making concerts more sustainable. If the music industry commits to becoming more sustainable, many other popular culture industries may follow suit and help further push environmentalism forward.  No matter what, it is important that concerts reduce their environmental impact so that we can all sustainably enjoy the show, both now and in the future.