Music and the Environment

Music and The Environment Think of the kind of happiness you would feel if I told you that your favourite band is arriving to your city! The excitement would build up from the moment you buy the tickets to the counting down of the days left, all the way until the much-awaited moment of queueing up for hours to get the front spot and sing and dance along with them. Right? But there are some things you may not have thought of. To reach your city, your favourite band will have travelled miles and miles, burning gallons of fuel in the process. While not many of us want to think about the environment when it comes to our favourite band, it is something you probably would want to think about when I tell you how much the creative industries pollute the environment. Recently, the band Coldplay made an official bold statement that they will not be touring this year. Reason? Environmental concerns. The band has made it clear that they will not be touring for their new album Everyday Life until they can offer carbon neutral concerts. Other major ticket artists like Billie Eilish, Annie Lennox, U2, Sting, KT Tunstall and Peter Gabriel have followed suit by addressing the environmental impact of carbon emissions that their shows have. The impact that the music industry currently has on the environment is just as bad as any other industry, just that we don’t really think about it as much. According to researchers from the UK and US, the UK music industry produces around 540,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions a year, with three-quarters of this being due to live music performances; the rest is caused by music recording and publishing. The price we pay for enjoying a live music concert is higher than we think; in order to estimate the total emissions, researchers scaled up and collected data from case studies across the industry. They found that 43% of greenhouse gases are produced by audience who travel to watch the live concerts, 23% are produced during live venue music events and 26% are produced during music recording and publishing. Music retailing, CD packaging and distribution of these records, equally caused a particularly high amount of emissions (just within the recording and publishing sector). However, the most common form of environmental damage during concerts is the littering. The aftermath of a live concert can be quite disastrous for the local grounds. Since it is not practical to keep an eye on littering during concerts, it is also not something you would want to take for granted. While environmentally friendly alternatives are being thought of, it is important to remember that laws and responsibilities are meant to be followed even when no one is watching. As found in a report, UK festivals produce 23,500 tonnes of waste every year, two thirds of which is sent to the landfill, leading to land pollution. So, make sure you do not contribute to pollution by littering at your next concert. A recent study also suggests that streaming music could actually be dangerous to the environment too, as it could lead to at least 200 to 350 kilograms of greenhouse gas emissions. The study also adds that the energy required to stream and download digital music releases creates more greenhouse emissions than the plastics required to make physical records. In terms of live productions, playing music requires lot of power generators and sound systems to enhance the show and make sure everyone can hear everything. While the concert may seem perfect at the time, we also cannot ignore the other side of the coin which shows its effects on pollution.

While the damage has already begun, there are some green bands like Green Day, Pearl Jam, Moby, and Cloud Cult who have taken incentives to protect the environment. These bands deserve respect for taking such a step for the global wellbeing. Since vintage music formats are more environmentally friendly than streaming music over power hungry networks, you might want to consider going back to vinyls. Another option is to own copies of music, in whatever format and playing them whenever you like! Streaming an album over the internet for more than 27 times will probably use more energy used to produce and manufacture the same CD. Moreover, the electricity required to stream music using a hi-fi sound system is estimated to be around 107 kilowatt hours a year, which costs around £15 to run. Whereas, if we take the case of a CD player, it uses 34.7 kilowatt hours a year and costs around £5 to run. The sooner we correct our mistakes, the better future lies for us and the next generations to come.