Written by Reagan KellyHead of Product and Sustainability Better for everyone
Artists have long known the power of music to spread a message: in 1971, Ravi Shankar and George Harrison’s Concert for Bangladesh raised funds and awareness for Bangladesh’s worsening humanitarian crisis. Charity Concert In the decades since its inception, internationally broadcast festivals and local programming have addressed a wide range of serious issues, including global hunger, AIDS activism, oppression and apartheid.
The scale of the problem we all face because of climate change challenges live events to engage on a deeper level than fundraising or raising awareness. Concerts and festivals are destinations as well as hospitality venues. Festivals in particular impact the economies outside their venues as well as the immediate environments they transform. Every year, 800 festivals take place in parks, deserts, beaches and fields across the United States. Elaborate sets, portable toilets, food, drink and souvenir vendors, campgrounds and myriad support services come together, in effect dropping a temporary live music ecosystem into existing environments and communities.
The economic benefits are Taylor Swift’s Record-Breaking ERAS Tour During her 53-stop U.S. live tour last year, Swifty said, “Typically, for every $100 spent on a live performance, an estimated $300 is incurred in incidental expenses like hotels, meals and travel. But on the Eras Tour, Swifty… Estimated value: $1,300-1,500 It focuses on a variety of things, including costumes, merchandise, food, travel and more, and boosts the local economy by hundreds of millions of dollars in just one weekend.”
Now for the negative side. Today’s economy mostly follows a “linear” model, with products designed to be discarded once they are no longer needed or desired. In a linear economic model, festival-related purchases generate a huge amount of waste, most of which ends up in landfills. Festival promoters are dealing with a major waste problem.
“Coachella, Stagecoach and Desert Trip are estimated to 214,000 pounds of waste per dayOnly one fifth of them recyclingThe rest goes to landfill… In the UK, festival-goers 250,000 tents Every year.”
Circulating the festival
“In a circular economy, products and materials keep circulating through processes such as maintenance, reuse, refurbishment, remanufacturing, recycling and composting. By decoupling economic activity from the consumption of finite resources, a circular economy tackles other global challenges such as climate change and biodiversity loss, waste and pollution.” Ellen MacArthur Foundation
Potential solutions are inherent in the very structure of festivals. Many venues and festivals are essentially “closed loop” systems. For safety reasons, festivals and venues ask attendees to minimize what they bring with them, buy on-site if necessary, and leave disposable items behind after the event. With advance planning and coordination between the concession and service providers involved, festival and concert waste can be significantly reduced. Norway’s OYA and the UK’s Glastonbury Festival have introduced solar-powered batteries, banned straws and most petroleum plastic products, introduced returnable wristbands and rental systems, and require food packaging to be certified compostable. Leftover food is sent to local food banks, and the rest is composted or converted into biogas. Ohtani recently bragged Since 2016, we have achieved a 60% reduction in plastic waste and increased our recycling rate to 60%.
But still, 40% of the waste ends up in landfills. My own experience at Coachella 2024 was mixed in terms of waste, at least when it came to consumables. After each performance, the lawn was literally covered with a layer of mixed-material trash, including cups, and plastic that cannot be recycled or composted.
Coachella 2024 photos, photo: author
Tortuga Music Festival
This year, I was also given the opportunity to personally witness the positive potential of live events to inspire fans while also tackling climate pollution. Rock the Ocean’s Tortuga Music Festival is an annual three-day Live Nation event and fundraiser for ocean conservation held on the beach in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Because Tortuga takes place on the beach, Rock the Ocean’s waste reduction and containment mission is extremely important. Whether reusable or not, discarded petroleum-based plastic cups will leach toxins and produce microplastics for decades when left on beaches or in the ocean. Most compostable cup options are made from PLA, which does not biodegrade in marine environments. What can you do?
Plan ahead
Rock the Ocean is committed to providing an ocean-safe solution to the approximately 40,000 cups used daily in the field. My startup is Better for everyoneis making cups from a PHA they call PHBH, a plant-based material that feels like plastic but is non-toxic, compostable and can be ingested by microorganisms living in soil and marine environments. By making the Better for All cup the “official” cup of Tortuga, every concession stand, box and bar provided a cup that was both distinctive for fans and easily diverted from landfills by sorters during daily cleanup. We partnered with Rock the Ocean’s designated composters several months before the event. Refundableto ensure that our cups would work in their composting systems. Thanks to the natural color of the PHBH, volunteers could easily sort the cups at the end of each day into food waste and other compostables.
“Rock the Ocean’s Tortuga Music Festival is a shining example in our industry of how live music can be a source of change. By embracing fun, it’s shifting perceptions and promoting a culture of sustainability. The results are incredible.” — International Business Awards Judge Tortuga Music Festival – 2023 Stevie Award Winner in Sustainability Leadership
Sorting and composting at TORTUGA. Photo: Author
Fans: A deeper level of engagement
The essence of live music is the connection between fans and artists. Nothing beats the feeling of watching your favorite artist perform with hundreds of others along with you, and this sense of community, even if temporary, permeates every aspect of the festival experience.
Coldplay gets fans involved in carbon reduction project We have installed energy generating dance floors and stationary bikes at the show venues so that fans can dance and ride along to generate the energy of the event. At OYA, attendees enter the venue on their bikes and Glastonbury’s “Love The Farm” and “Leave No Trace” The campaign encourages all participants to pack and take home only what they need. Global Citizen Festival This is part of a larger effort to encourage participants to make more than just financial contributions; ActivitiesIt combines education and political action with entertainment.
Involving fans in the infrastructure of a live music event can only create a better collective experience. At Tortuga, fans took part in Rock the Ocean’s marine conservation awareness activities, spent time in the Conservation Pavilion and noted the care taken by event producers in selecting the safest materials to implement into the festival oasis for both fans and the venue itself.
There aren’t many ways to bring joy to today’s climate conversation. Greening a live event is a unique opportunity. In June, the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative AnnouncedIt’s teaming up with industry giants like Live Nation and Warner Music Group to assemble an expert advisory panel to report on live music and climate change, with one of its many goals being to “identify key areas where the industry and concert audiences can make tangible improvements to reduce emissions and deliver positive outcomes for the planet.”
The committee includes management, academic and music business experts, as well as artists Billie Eilish, Harry Styles, Ellie Goulding, Coldplay, Depeche Mode and Shawn Mendes. Climate scientist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson said in The Interview that “we need a better climate for climate activism.” Better climate is coming.
Raegan Kelly, Head of Product and Sustainability at Better for All, is working with biopolymer engineers and manufacturing experts to develop the company’s proprietary line of home compostable PHBH™ bioplastic cups. Prior to joining Better for All, she produced creative projects for USC Annenberg, Warner Bros Records, LACMA, Otis College of Design, Disney’s Epcot Center, and more.
Sponsored content
