Sustainable touring gets the green light
The 2010 ILMC Green Room in London next weekend (see www.ilmc.com) will be looking at sustainable touring and with news that the cross music industry campaign group Julies Bicycle will publish their new research in to the impact of touring in the near future, the role of green touring is a topical subject. In the USA campaign group ATC has "created a guide to provide a framework that will help artists and managers navigate the abundant and somewhat contradictory information on lessening the environmental impact of touring in the music industry". See http://www.atctower.net/atc/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=359 .Contents include:
- From Greening To Sustainability: Shifting The Debate
- The Big Question: What Are Your Goals?
- Reduce Your Tour’s Environmental Footprint
- Carbon Emissions And Offsetting
- Biodiesel And The Liquid Fuel Dilemma
- Renewable Energy Certificates
- Walk The Walk
- One stop shop
- Links And Resources
You can also download TIPS FOR A MORE SUSTAINABLE TOUR BY ATC (pdf format - 107.32 Kb)A quick and prioritized list of how to make your tour more environmentally sustainable based on ATC's collected knowledge and valuable “lessons learned” from a variety of artists, industry leading experts and organizations that have been implementing sustainability into concerts, festivals and tours.Also on sustainable touring take a look at Reverb's site at www.reverb.org which provides more details, advice and contacts. Reverb have greened 81 tours up to early 2010 saving over 67,000 tonnes of CO2 and reaching 10 million plus fans. Artists involved include The Dave Matthes Band, The Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Sheryl Crowe, John Mayer, Jason Mraz, Linkin Park, Ben Folds, Bonnie Rait, Kelly Clarkson, Phish, Coldplay, John Legend, The Fray, Crowded House, Aimee Mann and Maroon 5. Reverb are also promoting the Campus Consciousness tour in April 2010 featuring seven college dates by Ben Harper and seventeen campus dates by Drake.Radiohead were one of the first bands to actively consider the impact of touring and Best Foot Forward analysed their North American theatre and arena tours in 2003 and 2006. The report, Ecological Footprint & Carbon Audit of Radiohead North American Tours 2003 & 2006 can be found at http://www.bestfootforward.com/media/upload/report/BFF_Radiohead_Final.pdfIf you are an artist and committed to greening a tour, you can use a green tour rider in all your contracts. A Greener Festival co-founder Ben Challis is a music industry lawyer and he has put together some clauses which could be added to a band's rider - ensuring that concert promoters provide methods of limiting the environmental impact caused by their events. Please feel free to download and include all or just some of these clauses in your rider - or change these to meet with your own views - but make sure you get proper legal advice before you use this material in a contract or other legally binding document! https://agreenerfuture.com/wp-content/uploads/A_Greener_Rider.pdfJulies Bicycle seminal First Step report can be found at www.juliesbicycle.com and watch out for their new report and Touring Research which is due to be published at the end of March 2010 which will provide a quantative emissions profile of domestic and international touring by the UK music and theatre sectors, will assess qualitatively the challenges and opportunities for greehouse gas emissions reductions through the tour supply chain and provide the latest science and guidance to artists and tour planners on key topics such as audience travel, carbon offsets, biofuels, catering, merchandise and sponsorship. http://www.juliesbicycle.com/research.UPDATEyou can find a report on the panel by clicking 'Saturday' at www.ilmc.com/22/ at the direct link is http://www.ilmc.com/22/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=68&Itemid=106and here http://www.juliesbicycle.com/cycle-diaries/696,Turning+the+Tide+In+Global+Touring+-+JB+at+the+ILMC+.html