Time for something a little different. I thought I would take a look at music through a different lens this time - using what I do as a day job, to give it a fresh angle.
I am a sustainability manager by day and a music fan all of the time. But if I stop and think about some aspects of music through this sustainability lens, it doesn't always come out very rosy. There's the current resurgence in vinyl (which we might look at that another day), a medium I love for listening to music. It's got such depth of sound, and the records themselves, and their sleeves, are so tactile and engaging - but it is an fossil fuel based product. Then there's the recording process and the storing of music in digital clouds, both of which use large amounts of energy.
But today we'll look at touring. Now, I love going to gigs and seeing my favourite acts live - I find it very energising and joyous to see a good band live. The flip side though, is that musicians are travelling, often thousands of miles, to provide this service to their fans. That's thousands of air and land miles, often with large crews, support bands and several (at least) truckloads of kit. Each person, each vehicle, the hotels they stay in, the concerts themselves, require huge quantities of fuel - all of which comes with a carbon footprint.
Some acts have started to understand the impacts of these tours and have either stopped touring completely like Coldplay (thankfully) did for a while, or have made demands of their tour promoters, to ensure that they tour in the most sustainable way they can. Acts like Neil Young, Fatboy Slim and Peggy Gou have started to put environmental stipulations into their tour plans. But what are the impacts? I've done a bit of digging and crunched a few numbers, to try and give an idea of what impact a tour might have, and how a few tweaks could make it, for want of a better word, 'greener.'
Vehicles:
Tour buses, trucks full of equipment and often lots of flights - getting a band and crew around a national, or international, tour, can involve a lot of road and air miles. Those miles come with a carbon footprint. Up until recently, this would have been all about dirty diesel and jet fuel - but slowly things are changing.
Now, some buses and trucks are running on biofuels, which bring some carbon reductions. There are efforts to grow the green hydrogen industry (hydrogen fuel produced using renewable energy) and hopefully it can soon be used in the heavy vehicle sector before too long (current estimates predict it might be market ready in the middle of this decade) - which could help eventually make even HGVs zero carbon emission.
Similar efforts are being made in the air sector - first with biofuels, then later potentially with electric / battery options (for smaller, shorter flights) and maybe even hydrogen eventually for longer international flights.
Hotels:
Every touring band and their crew needs somewhere to stay on the road, but how sustainable are hotels? Well, hotels contribute around 1% of all global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
While many big hotel chains have made big promises around sustainability, many have struggled post-pandemic to make many big inroads into things like their carbon targets. A hotel wanting to be sustainable needs to consider things like its energy sources, i.e. can they integrate solar or wind energy. Also, can they reduce water consumption and eliminate a lot of their waste streams, especially single-use plastic?
In 2017, the International Tourism Partnership (now the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance - SHA) set goals aligned with the Paris Agreement, to reduce carbon footprints by 66% per room, by 2030, and 90% by 2050 (from a 2010 baseline). But a 2019 study by Professor Willy Legrand (IUBH Business School) found that of the nine largest global chains, only Accor had targets aligned with this.
For most, there is a real mish-mash of ambitions and targets. Hilton (not including franchises) aims to reduce carbon by 61% per m2 by 2030 (2008 baseline), while Marriott are aiming for 30% per m2 by 2025 (2016 baseline). For the record, Melia Hotels International won the 2022 Most Sustainable Hotel Company, awarded by S&P Global.
In the UK, looking at a few more familiar chains, Travelodge launched their Better Future programme in 2022. They talk about becoming net-zero, reducing water consumption, removing single-use plastics and doing more around diversity and wellbeing for their staff, but details still seem a little thin on the ground (at the time of writing - May 23). Premier Inn (part of the Whitbread Group) have declared a 2040 net-zero carbon target, through their Force For Good strategy.
The Venue:
It was hard to find decent information on the energy impact of the actual concert. We are talking about fairly large amounts of energy, even for a fairly small gig - the power for amplification, lighting etc. all adds up pretty quickly.
I found this as a bit of a guide on fuelrocks.com. "A typical rock concert uses about 10,000 watts of power, which is enough to power about 10 homes. The majority of this power goes to amplifying the music, but lighting and other special effects also play a role." So, this is a fairly significant draw on power, and they go on to say that this means that average concert will use around 500kWh of electricity for an entire show.
This doesn't include some of the other aspects of the gig itself; there are the bars, the merchandise stands and of course, the gig goers themselves. All of these factors will add more potentially unsustainable impacts to the process (where were the t-shirts made, how far did the fans travel etc.).
Food:
Well I guess that bands and crews have to eat whether they are at home or on the road, but this seems a good opportunity to throw a few food-related facts out there anyway.
An Oxford University study (reported in Zero Smart) has shown that a vegan diet can reduce your food carbon footprint by up to 73% (although the locality of the produce and energy needed to grow different types of produce can play a big factor on that). For meat eaters, livestock are very energy intensive through the food they eat, but have other sustainability impacts, like high water consumption and added land-use pressure.
The study discovered that a meat-lover diet can contribute around 3.3tCO2e (GHG emissions) per year, per person - a no beef diet, around 1.9tCO2e - vegetarian 1.7tCO2e - and a vegan diet, as low as 1.5tCO2e. Red meat production accounts for 23% of all agricultural GHG emissions - when compared to plant based food, it accounts for 42 times more land-use, 4 times more nitrogen emissions and 2 times more water use.
Touring Example:
I thought I would put together a bit of an example of a small tour, to show the kind of carbon footprint it could have. Now, while I have played a few pub gigs over the years, I can't claim to have ever been on tour, so some calculations are based on my assumptions.
This imaginary band consists of four members, who have just flown into Heathrow (flights not included in this). They have hooked up with a ten person crew - they will be using one bus, one large truck and two smaller transit sized vans. They will be playing seven shows over eight nights, before returning to the airport.
Carbon factors are from the UK Government (Defra) 2022 list.
Itinerary Option 1
Day 1: Travel from Heathrow
Day 2: Leeds Academy (196 miles)
Day 3: Edinburgh Academy (223 miles)
Day 4: Newcastle Boilershop (128 miles)
Day 5: Manchester O2 Ritz (152 miles)
Day 6: Birmingham O2 (87 miles)
Day 7: London Shepherds Bush (114 miles)
Day 8: Bristol O2 Academy (115 miles)
Day 9: Return to Heathrow (103 miles)
That's a total of 1,118 miles.
HGV: 1,118 miles x 1.27294 (diesel) = 1,423kgCO2e
2 x Transit Vans: 1,118 x 2 x 0.4101 = 916kgCO2e
Tour Bus: 1,118 x 0.0437 (diesel) = 49kgCO2e
Hotel: 14 people x 8 nights x 10.4 = 1,165kgCO2e
Total: 3,553kgCO2e
We could re-jig this tour in a slightly different way - after all, that itinerary has a bit of a zig-zag to it. We could also make some changes to our vehicles. Now, let's try that again...
Itinerary Option 2
Day 1: Travel from Heathrow
Day 2: Bristol (103 miles)
Day 3: Birmingham (88 miles)
Day 4: Manchester (87 miles)
Day 5: Edinburgh (217 miles)
Day 6: Newcastle (128 miles)
Day 7: Leeds (98 miles)
Day 8: London (198 miles)
Day 9: Return to Heathrow (10 miles)
That logistical change has already made a difference - total mileage is down to 929 miles (189 miles less).
HGV: 929 miles x 1.27294 (diesel) = 1,183kgCO2e
2 x Transit Vans: 929 x 2 x 0.4101 = 762kgCO2e
Tour Bus: 929 x 0.0437 = 41kgCO2e
Hotel: 14 people x 8 nights x 10.4 = 1,165kgCO2e
Total: 3,151kgCO2e
That's a reduction of 402kgCO2e (0.4 tonne), just from changing the route slightly
And if they also switched the diesel for a biodiesel like HVO, and battery electric in the transits....
Approx. Total: 1,429kgCO2e
I hope that gives at least a little food for thought, next time you are at a gig.