Industry Urged to Act by Green Report
IQ Magazine 2.5.2008
A report into the UK music industry has quantified the extent of its carbon emissions and made a clear set of recommendations on what must be done to reduce its carbon footprint by between 60% and 80% by 2050, in line with European directives.
The report, titled First Step, was commissioned by music industry greening group Julie’s Bicycle (JB) and compiled by the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. It has revealed that the live music industry was responsible for 65% of the UK music industry’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2007.
Audience travel accounted for 43% of the estimated 538,000 tonnes of CO2 produced in 2007, with music venues making up 23% of the total. The report, which took 10 months to compile, also criticised the lack of available data from the live music industry and called for more co-ordinated industry action.
“The UK music industry is not carbon intensive but still will find reducing GHG emissions by 60-80% a challenge,” it states. “[It is] at the beginning of the learning process in energy and carbon management.”
“This is a very conservative study,” says JB director Alison Tickle. “We have to get people to look above the parapet of their own bottom line. I hope that the report provides a bit of clarity that what we’re dealing with is deeply serious, deeply urgent and it’s all about fossil fuels.”
The research estimated that 75 million tickets were sold annually in the UK, 90% for venue-based shows and 8% for festivals. The annual energy demand of an arena will generate 1,800t CO2, with larger festivals (over 40,000-capacity) generating around 2,000t CO2 including audience travel.
Recommendations made by the report include venues and offices switching to a green electricity tariff or renewable energy, the creation of travel schemes to reduce audience transport emissions and installing low carbon (LED) lighting in venues.
“The Julie’s Bicycle research is a ‘get out of bed and do something’ call,” says Ben Challis of AGreenerFestival.com. “The live sector now knows what it is producing in terms of greenhouse gas emissions – now we have to do something about it.”
The board of Julie’s Bicycle is made up of senior executives from across the UK music industry, with many championing specific areas of change. Festival Republic’s Melvin Benn is fronting audience travel, while Live Nation’s Paul Latham is in charge of LED Lighting.
But while the report makes specific recommendations for the business itself, it also recognises the industry’s power to influence society through cultural leadership and role modelling. “The music industry can be a climate leader,” Tickle says. “We’re in a really good position to drive this low carbon economy.”
The First Step report is available online at www.juliesbicycle.com