By Lindzrox
The music industry is looking a little green these days and that’s a good thing! With music moving to a more digital platform, eco-friendly packaging, “green” tours and award shows and artists refusing to participate in any activity that could be wasteful or harmful to the environment. This is a new form of rebellion in the world of rock n’ roll!
Even the big-bad record labels are embracing their inner environmentalist because they realize that their customers want to buy a record or attend a concert, and they want that transaction/experience to be guilt-free. This is better for the planet and in turn better for their bottom lines.
The green message’s resonance with consumers can’t be underestimated, and marketers and brands in the music industry want to be associated with this movement. In the past, it was usually up to the tree-hugging granola rockers, but now the green movement has spread across the music universe.
When it comes to being green, the music industry has a dirty past and we can’t just blame the rock stars. For one, more than one billion CD jewel cases are produced each year in North America, most of which are made of polyvinyl chloride, a cheap plastic that’s nearly impossible to recycle. Additionally, a recent MusicMatters study revealed that tour buses contribute about 150,000 tons of carbon emissions annually, and one stadium performance yields anywhere from 500 to 1,000 tons of CO2. Even a midsize music venue goes through 470,000 plastic cups, 200,000 napkins, and 600 light bulbs every year. But there is a light at the end of the concert strobe, these “green” faux pas are quickly becoming a thing of rock n’ roll’s sordid past.
Here are some acts of “green” that is music to our ears:
EMI
At its 2007 Grammy after-party, the label shuttled guests around in Saturn hybrids and served up pesticide-free fare.
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The label distributes music from 50 of its US artists in renewable and recyclable paperboard cases, and offers similar packaging for 40 Canadian artists and 22 UK artists. The company has also reduced the carbon footprint of its New York City offices by 31 percent through a “reducing, reusing and recycling” program.
Warner Music Group
CDs and DVD liner notes contain 30 percent post-consumer paper made from wood certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC); however, the inserts are packaged inside jewel cases. The label offset its 2008 Grammy after-party, an event that included CFLs, biodiesel generators, recycled paper products, locally grown food, and organic soaps. This year, WMG offset CO2 emissions from its New York City offices and started WMGreen, its ongoing green initiative with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and renewable energy company NativeEnergy.
Universal Music Group
CDs from 60 of Universal’s thousands of artists are distributed in recyclable/biodegradeable paperboard sleeves.
Parks and Records
The Bay Area-based label packages CDs in recycled office paper and donates 5 percent of each $8 CD to groups like Friends of the Urban Forest, the National Forest Foundation, and the National Arbor Day Foundation. The company also makes its own mail-order envelopes using catalog and magazine covers, bags, and other reclaimed paper.
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The label, founded by singer Jack Johnson, powers its office and recording studio with solar panels, insulates its walls with 100 percent post-consumer waste (like blue jean scraps), and uses recycled shingles on the roof. Brushfire CDs, which are manufactured and distributed by Universal, come in recycled plastic trays.
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The Seattle indie label has purchased renewable energy credits from the Bonneville Environmental Foundation since 2006. The label also ships advance copies of new releases in plastic-free, recyclable paperboard.
Kill Rock Stars
The label has purchased offsets from Bonneville Environmental Foundation since 2007, and is currently in talks with Brighter Planet to offset band tours. While the company still relies heavily on plastic jewel cases, it also distributes CDs in Digipacks, which can be made with recycled card stock.
Earthology Recordings
A Minnesota organic farm powered by geothermal and wind power houses this not-for-profit label. CDs are packaged in a combination of recycled, soy-ink paper and 100 percent recycled/reclaimed jewel cases. The recording studio itself is crafted from reused materials like chicken coop wire and “other odds and ends,” founder Craig Minowa recently told MTV. In addition to being a member of the indie band Cloud Cult, Minowa is an environmental scientist with the Organic Consumer’s Association.
Green Owl Records
This Manhattan-based label packages all CDs in 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper, and is donating 100 percent of profits raised from a compilation released this April to the Energy Action Coalition. The label recently took three of its bands to Austin’s South by Southwest in a tour bus powered by vegetable oil, and another band, The So So Glos, is touring this fall in a veggie oil-powered bus. Green Owl purchases carbon offsets from NativeEnergy, and offers customers the chance to recycle their used CDs for free.
Radiohead
Thom Yorke, frontman for Radiohead, told the UK’s Guardian newspaper he would “consider refusing to tour on environmental grounds, if nothing started happening to change the way the touring operates.” He explained, “Some of our best ever shows have been in the U.S., but there’s 80,000 people there and they’ve all been sitting in traffic jams for five or six hours with their engines running to get there, which is bollocks.”
Vans Warped Tour
Employs a solar-powered stage engineered by Austin’s Sustainable Waves, is saving 81,000 disposable plates by using washable dishware and utensils for bands and crew, and avoids 50,000 pounds of carbon-dioxide emissions by using varying blends of biodiesel in the tour’s nine big-rigs and 17 buses.
Dave Matthews Band
Buys renewable-energy credits to offset energy use from amps onstage, as well as trucking, travel, and hotel stays for current megatours – as well as retroactively over the last 15 years.
Pearl Jam
Is now using 100% biodiesel in all tour production trucks and is donating $100,000 to nine organizations doing climate-change-reform activities, while shooting for net-zero emissions from tours and business.
Who else?
Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt, Neil Young, Indigo Girls are all prominent biodiesel burners.
So as you can see things are happening in the music industry and for once it’s about preserving the planet and not turning a profit from a popstar. So celebrate Earth Day this year by climbing in the Magic Bio-diesel Bus and throwing in your favourite environmentally-friendly CD, may I suggest R.E.M’s Green since we are on the subject.tarzan divx download