Tom HallHot on the heels of Coldplay announcing a ‘pause’ to their touring due to climate concerns, Bristol-based band Massive Attack has commissioned a report on the sector’s emissions.
The band teamed up with the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, a broad group of climate scientists, to “map thoroughly the carbon footprint of band tour cycles, and to present options that can be implemented quickly” to reduce emissions.
The recommendations from the study will be made available to everyone in the industry to ‘encourage prompt action’.
Robert Del Naja wrote in The Guardian that the band considered giving up touring altogether but concluded: “To create systemic change there is no real alternative to collective action.”
The release stares: “In the context of an emergency, carbon offset schemes and credits are of greatly diminished value. They do not reduce carbon emissions entering the atmosphere and no offsetting scheme can simultaneously remedy this. Growing evidence also suggests seriously negative side-effects of these programmes for the indigenous and rural communities in the global south…. Offset and forget cannot work in a climate and biodiversity emergency.”
The study will examine the areas of live music with the greatest carbon footprint: audience transportation, band travel and production, and venue emissions.