EcoLiving Ideas

By Dede Tabak on Mar 9, 2010

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I know people say that music heals the soul, but can it also heal our planet? Although music concerts are awesome, they produce a lot of waste and consume tons of energy. The concert may only last a few hours, but it has a damaging effect on the environment. Fortunately Adam Gardner, guitarist for the band Guster, noticed this as well. He told the Colorado Independent, “You’d come to a concert and everybody drove there in their own cars and there’s a big plastic wasteland at the end of the night and we got there in our tour bus that guzzled diesel and it was like, ‘God, this is terrible, how do we do something about this?’” So Gardner and his wife, environmentalist Lauren Sullivan, formed Reverb. Reverb is a non-profit organization that helps artists green their tours and educate concert-goers about environmental issues. Since it began in 2004, Reverb has greened over 81 major musical tours including Dave Mathews Band, Maroon 5, Jack Johnson and Sheryl Crow.

Reverb reduces the waste produced from musical tours by setting up recycling bins, not only for the audience, but for the backstage area as well. The backstage crew and musicians are given aluminum water bottles instead of plastic ones. Organic concessions are sold and even served on biodegradable tableware. (You can view Jesse Carmichael, the keyboardist from Maroon 5, taking a big bite out of one of the cups made from corn on the Reverb website.) All the merchandise sold at the event is made out of organic materials. Musicians travel on buses using bio-fuel and they also compensate for the carbon emissions produced by the tour by donating money to support renewable energy and forestation projects.

Reverb also sets up booths for environmental organizations to engage and educate concert-goers called the Eco-Village. They take advantage of the access to such a large crowd to register people to vote, discuss local legislature and solar power and to educate fans about environmental issues. They also give fans the opportunity to offset their carbon emissions from travelling to and from the concert. 80% of the carbon emissions from a concert are actually produced by the fans themselves.

Reverb is working on some exciting events for 2010 including a Campus Consciousness Tour featuring artists such as Drake and Ben Harper. The Campus Consciousness Tour is aimed at motivating and educating students about being green. They are also greening the 2010 Lilith Fair and the 2010 Brandi Carlile Tour. Reverb has formed a coalition of musicians and leaders in the music industry to use their power to spread the green message even further. This coalition is called the Green Music Group where artists and major people in the industry use their power to bring about environmental change. GMG and Reverb are not just trying to green the music industry, but are “committed to a sustainable future both on and off -stage.” Now that’s music to my ears and the environment’s.

For more information about concerts in your area or volunteering check out the Reverb website here!