Paris (AFP)

There is still a long way to go, but environmental concerns are mounting the sound in current music, from awareness-raising messages from stars like Billie Eilish to small gestures like avoiding the unnecessary sticker on a vinyl sleeve.

Today, the groups concerned by ecological issues, from local to international, are multiplying in the sector.

"Whereas 10 years ago, it was: + It's okay, we don't manufacture aircraft carriers! +", Recalls Clémence Meunier, from the French branch of Music Declares Emergency (MDE), speaking at the forum on the ecological transition of the Parisian festival MaMA (for Marché des musiques nouvelles).

MDE, which left England in 2019, is a movement of artists, professionals and music organizations mobilized to declare a state of emergency at the climatic and ecological level.

MDE quickly gained media attention with famous signatories such as Billie Eilish or Massive Attack.

We currently see on the site the bassist of The Strokes or Brian Eno sporting a t-shirt with the logo "No music on a dead planet" ("No music on a dead planet").

The idea is "to use the voice of artists, who perhaps reach the public more easily than a report from the experts of the IPCC (group of climate experts of the UN), our public is everywhere, rare are the people who do not listen to music ", as Clémence Meunier sums it up at MaMA.

Organizations like MDE, as this journalist puts it, strive to "educate the public and the pros" on points like "mobility".

- Transport issue -

Because "transport is the primary source of greenhouse gas emissions in performing arts", as pointed out to MaMA Solweig Barbier, co-founder of the Arviva association (Living Arts, Sustainable Arts), born in 2020.

On the side of the pros, it is, as she emphasizes, "to rationalize to avoid touring China and the United States in a hurry".

The group Coldplay had recently promised to ensure its air travel.

And on the public side, we have to find alternatives to individual vehicles.

The group Coldplay at the Apollo Theater in Harlem, New York, September 23, 2021. Theo Wargo GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA / AFP / Archives

Solweig Barbier illustrates this last point and a possible solution with his other hat as secretary general of the Grange au Lac, a performance hall in Evian-Les-Bains, built on the side of a rock.

"Nobody is going to come by bike (smile), so we have to encourage people to take a shuttle where a pre-show will be presented to them".

She also insists on the forms to be put in the messages to be transmitted.

"I am based in Evian-Les-Bains, a city where we sell water in plastic bottles, so rather than saying + We must stop plastic water bottles +, we say + In a water bottle (reusable) , the water is cooler + ".

- Question of scale -

These different collectives, as Ms. Meunier explains, must pool "resources and knowledge".

Ms. Barbier agrees: "We (the pros of the sector) shoot in the same places, so we have to find (and list) hotels that do not use too much laundry (therefore use less water, detergents ... ), do not turn on the light unnecessarily, limit the use of plastic, etc. ".

Present at the round table, Lucie Bouchet-Dahan, responsible for cultural marketing and sustainable development applied to the sector, also dissects what everyone can do at their level: the artist "Emily Loizeau, for her vinyls, avoided the sticker (sticker) which is useless, it is a good example ".

Emily Loizeau on her arrival at 24th Lumières series, held at the Institut du Monde Arabe, in Paris on February 4, 2019 Anne-Christine POUJOULAT AFP / Archives

These experts present at MaMA are lucid about the challenges to be met.

"When, without naming a name, we reach 30,000 people per evening in a festival, the question arises of the scale and the origin of the public, it is still a little taboo", says Ms. Bouchet-Dahan.

They are not fooled either by the declarations of intention of certain actors in the sector to give themselves a clear conscience.

Too often still, "when we ask the question + Who wants change? + Everyone says + Yes +. When we say + Who wants to change? + There is no one left", concludes Solweig Barbier.

© 2021 AFP