- Ecología.Coldplay will not tour to promote your album for environmental impact
A few weeks ago Chris Martin announced that Coldplay would not go on tour to present his new album, Everyday life , until they can guarantee a lower environmental impact. On its previous tour, A head full of dreams , the band used 32 trucks and nine buses that traveled the five continents , playing for 5.4 million people in 122 concerts, with a final collection that exceeded $ 523 million. The Coldplay ad has triggered reactions of all kinds. Alejandro Sanz has been the last to join the trend and a few days ago he announced at the Madrid Climate Summit that he will also reduce broadcasts at his concerts, although without specifying how or when.
There is not a very reliable way to estimate what the impact of live music in the environment, but the expert Mark Savage BBC in England is estimated that 405,000 tons of greenhouse gases a year. It's not just about the flights that artists take to move from city to city: the assembly and disassembly of the stage is what most contaminates (34% of the total of a tour, according to the Green touring guide ), the transport of fans who attend concerts 33% and merchandising , 12%.
According to this green guide for professionals in the music industry, each concert attendee usually generates five kilos of CO2. That means that in Germany, where in 2013 74.4 million tickets for concerts were sold, that year the equivalent in emissions to 248,000 flights between Berlin and New York was generated. More illustrative data: the mastodóntica tour in which U2 embarked between 2009 and 2011 (the famous 360º Tour that started in Barcelona and saw 7.2 million people worldwide) supposed a carbon footprint equivalent to a one-way trip and return from earth to Mars .
Martin's statements were followed a few days ago by Robert Del Naja , the vocalist of Massive Attack, who will now work with researchers from the University of Manchester to study the impact of his tours. Something that, in fact, the Bristol group has been doing for 20 years: in the Massive Attack concerts, single-use plastics are prohibited , the band travels by train whenever they can and pays for trees to be planted. But none of that is enough given the "emergency context," says Del Naja, who sees in the headlines that generate those actions a false illusion of commitment that calms the conscience of the most privileged (the greenwashing effect) but does not cause the seismic change »necessary for things to be truly different.
In England, the Glastonbury festival banned disposable plastic this year. The 1975 group has stopped selling t-shirts and has pledged to plant a tree for every ticket it sells on its tour next February. And next tour Billie Eillish in March 2020, will feature eco-village Billie Eillish for fans to know their commitment to the climate crisis.
How is the panorama in Spain? Last year, the pressure of environmental groups made the Doctor Music Festival not be held in Escalarre, Lleida, due to the foreseeable impact it would have on the surface and groundwater in this area of Pallars Sobirà.
The Dutch electronic music festival DGTL - with a Barcelona branch for five years and Madrid for two years - is one that takes its environmental impact more seriously. He pioneered in Spain to recycle the urine of his assistants in the 2017 edition, more than 3,000 liters a day. A reactor integrated in the toilet cabins transformed urine into struvite , a phosphate-based fertilizer for trees, plants, vegetables and fruits.
The experiment was only carried out in that edition. The organization is now working to make the edition of the festival in Amsterdam next 2020 the first "100% circular" in its history. The festival only serves vegan food since 2016 (the meat industry is one of the most polluting) and according to its website , the fact that its 40,000 attendees do not eat meat for two days avoids the planet «53,000 kilos of CO2, 14 million liters of water and 21,000 kilos of fodder, which would be equivalent to 295 laps between Ámsterdan and Barcelona ».
the impact of Radiohead
More examples: Primavera Sound has a “sustainability coordinator ” since 2010, Xavi Junqueras. Its mission is to "gradually" reduce the environmental impact of a macro-event that, in its latest edition, brought together 63,000 people in one day. One of the turning points was Radiohead's performance as headliners in 2016. The group led by Thom Yorke was already an Arctic ambassador for Greenpeace and demanded some demands in dressing room and communication level.
The festival has been inviting the company A Greener Festival for years (a London-based auditor that analyzes and scores the environmental effort) to note: in 2017 and 2018 it was two out of four (four being the outstanding echo) and Last year they climbed one more step.
The 2019 edition was the first in which the reusable plastic cup was used. Junqueras explains that the festival recovered 116,290 units, which is equivalent to about four tons. In total, Primavera Sound generated in its last edition 48 tons of waste between glass (from which 8.4 tons were recycled), paper (six tons recovered) and organic matter (three tons recycled). The majority, 33%, corresponds to "light containers", of which 16 tons were recycled. To optimize selective collection, the festival has four environmental trainers that explain to restaurant and bar staff how to separate waste well . Of all the garbage generated, 222 grams per assistant, 78% were collected selectively.
And what about one of the most controversial decisions, that of hiring Portuguese waiters who travel from the neighboring country to work during the festival? Junqueras recognizes that the transport of these workers is a "small handicap compared to hiring local staff" and explains that it is an area outside their responsibility, although he admits that it is "debatable."
Another of the challenges is the supply of energy in the so-called marine platform of the Forum (the artificial turf area, for the regulars of the festival) because the public electricity grid does not get there. That means that every kilowatt spent in that area has been produced by a generator and therefore pollutes more.
Jordi Herreruela, director of the Cruïlla, Coldplay's decision is "fantastic" but has been slow in coming. "Those of us who are dedicated to events have been worrying about reducing our environmental footprint for a long time, so it was time for artists to do the same." Cruïlla began to eliminate plastic five years ago , since 2018 it uses biodegradable glasses made of wheat (in 2019 220,000 units were used) and in its latest edition they also managed to eliminate plastic bottles of water. Herreruela sees complicated short-term energy sources develop zero emissions.
"To the power of light and sound that teams need at a festival, there are currently no solutions in the market, although they are working on it," he says. “Actually, a festival, a tour, the fact that thousands of people come together in one place, has a high impact. If we become fundamentalists, it would be more sustainable to stay at home reading the newspaper, ”he reflects. And he adds: "I suppose we should also worry about the ways in which we can compensate for that impact when the concerts end," with actions such as reforestation.
Herreruela also defends reducing the scale from global to local: look for suppliers and a nearby audience, integrate the neighborhood (the food leftovers from Cruïlla, held at the Forum, go to a dining room in La Mina) and in general, change attitude. "Before, all the festivals commissioned studies to quantify their economic impact on the city, now we have to present other types of studies, which tell us how to contaminate less," he summarizes.
His vision is not excessively optimistic: “Just as the music industry was transformed a few years ago in a wild way, the same will happen with that of live music. And this time he is not preparing for change as he should.
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