Wired Earth

Everybody’s doing it. From Coldplay to the Kaiser Chiefs, green is the new rock ’n’ roll. But can pop stars really save the world? Chris Alden peers into the biofuelled tour bus.

We’ve come a long way, baby. It might be 30 years since Cat Stevens wondered where the children played, Joni Mitchell told us they’d paved paradise, and David Bowie recalled how the “news guy wept and told us, Earth… was really dying” – but back in the early ’70s, both musicians and the ecology movement they sang about were still essentially counterculture.

"You can’t open a newspaper without seeing another pop star reminding us just how little time we have to save the Earth"

Yet if a ’70s rock chick could swap her vinyl for an iPhone and fast-forward to 2007, it would seem like Life on Mars compared to those early days of alternative environmentalism.

These days green is mainstream – and you can’t open a newspaper without seeing another pop star reminding us just how little time we have to save the Earth. Or just how thoroughly they’ve offset their latest carbon-neutral album and 60-date world tour.

"Live Earth drew as much comment for the size of its carbon footprint as it did for its awareness raising"

You could be forgiven for feeling a touch of concert fatigue. You wouldn’t be alone. Live Earth drew as much comment for the size of its carbon footprint as it did for its awareness raising. So is any of this making the slightest bit of difference?

The answer, musicians and campaigners say, depends on the artist, the venue and the gig – and there is still a long way to go.

For some, musicians can always play a role as the Heineken of the green movement – reaching the audiences most campaigns leave untouched.

"A 14-year-old kid who comes to a gig can pester their parents to turn the telly off at the plug"

“What can a 14-year-old kid do, who comes along to a gig?” asks Bryn Fowler, bassist for British indie band The Holloways. “If they start believing in it, they can pester their parents to turn off the telly at the plug every night, turn off the lights every night, to unplug the computer – things like that. All those things start to make a difference.”

Among the high-profile campaigns fronted by musicians this year has been Friends of the Earth’s Big Ask, which wants to see a strong climate change law. Nicola Jackson, its communications manager, insists that artists involved “have to be passionate about it and want to make a difference”. She points to Thom Yorke from Radiohead and Razorlight’s Johnny Borrell as examples of ambassadors who have given the charity a lot of unpaid time.

"Musicians can always play a role as the Heineken of the green movement – reaching the audiences most campaigns leave untouched"

Friends of the Earth would be uncomfortable, she says, if it felt an artist’s motive for approaching them was pure self-promotion. “That’s something Johnny and Thom have been sensitive to,” she says. “They’ve wanted to make it clear they’re getting involved because they care about it, not for their own personal gain.” It’s a theme taken up by Richard Kilgarriff of Global Cool, which campaigns for people to pledge to reduce their carbon emissions. It’s fronted by artists including KT Tunstall, the Kaiser Chiefs, Pink and the Scissor Sisters. “We’d rather have deep and long relationships with artists than lots of shallow ones,” says Kilgarriff. Tunstall, he adds, has backed up her campaigning with practical steps such as using a biodiesel tour bus.

It’s just as well she does. Because with armies of journalists out there ready to slam any artist at the slightest hint of greenwash, bands that speak out need to show they’re walking their talk, too. And the more high-profile they are, the more tempting the target, as Coldplay discovered.

Others got there first, but it was Coldplay who brought the idea of the carbon-neutral album into the mainstream in 2005, when they hired Future Forests (now the CarbonNeutral Company) to offset the emissions from the album X&Y. When some of the mangos planted in India to achieve this wilted in the heat, journalists were quick to cry foul – although the company insists any credits Coldplay bought were transferred to another project, so the CD was still carbon-neutral.

Meanwhile, as NME’s news editor, Paul Stokes, points out, it’s easier than ever before to record a track in your front room, or make it available as a download- only single. So many artists are becoming a whole lot more ecological by accident, not design – thanks to technology.

"It’s touring which is perhaps the Achilles’ heel of the best-intentioned bands. All those flights, those giant venues, all that energy-guzzling equipment…"

But it’s touring which is perhaps the Achilles’ heel of the best-intentioned bands. All those flights, those giant venues, all that energy-guzzling equipment… As Stokes, says: “They’re not great role models.”There’s an opportunity there, too, suggests Kilgarriff. “At Global Cool we have carbon coaches who speak to artists about their own carbon footprint, and get them to introduce efficiencies and reductions.” Reverb, a US nonprofit group, adds an education element to the touring process. Based on a model developed by American singer and environmentalist Bonnie Raitt, Reverb helps artists such as the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Alanis Morissette green all aspects of tours, by advising them on reducing emissions through initiatives such as using biodiesel buses, buying renewable energy credits, and including organic, locally sourced ingredients in their backstage riders.

It also works with artists to set up a front-of-house ‘eco-village’ showing off technologies such as biofuels, biodegradable crockery, and non-petroleum cosmetics. Fans are urged to offset their drives to and from gigs. “In six months of touring, Barenaked Ladies fans have offset 8.5 million miles of driving through this programme,” says Gardner – neatly capturing both the scale of their achievement, and the massive size of the ‘tour miles’ footprint.

Some bands find their own ways to do their bit. The Holloways (who also support FoE’s ‘Big Ask’) launched a “seaside tour” this summer to encourage fans to holiday in Britain rather than abroad, playing gigs in such venues as Morecambe, Penzance and Cleethorpes.

True, the band flew to Japan on a recent tour – but that, perhaps, illustrates the potential difficulties of being green in a globalised world. “You do open yourself up to criticism,” says Fowler. “That’s why we only back things we can get involved in. What we are saying is: ‘Do everything you can to use less carbon.’ Whenever we tour Europe, we don’t fly out to the first place.” He is also campaigning to get some of the worst polluting tour buses off the roads.

Live Earth may have drawn criticism, but Gardner sees it as the beginning of a long road. “As a result of Live Earth, and the work Reverb has done, a lot of artists have said: ‘Cool, there are options out there – what can I do to be more green?’ It’s a starting point, not an ending point.”

Additional material by Martin Wright.

26 October 2007

Chris Alden and Martin Wright