Music Business Journal: The Greening of the Music Industry

A music business major investigates green tours.

Minden Jones

Escalating greenhouse gases and worrisome climate changes are causing more people and businesses from around the world to address old and shortsighted practices that are environmentally wasteful. For the music business, the focus is on superfluous carbon emissions and staggering energy uses, especially in artist touring, audience travel, venue management, and recorded music sales.

In fact, many major artists have been called into question for their extravagance. Madonna's Sticky and Sweet world tour, for instance, began in August 2008. Madonna flew a team of 250 people to 37 venues in less than four months to play 45 dates. Environmental consultant John Buckley, of Carbon Footprint, calculated that the energy used was equivalent to illuminating a 100-watt bulb for approximately 400 years. U2's 2009 tour was even worse. Helen Roberts, also with Carbon Footprint, could say that "the carbon footprint generated by U2's 44 concerts this year [was] equal to [the carbon the band would have created] if it had travelled the 34 million miles from Earth to Mars in a passenger plane." The amount of energy used in tours appears to be staggering....