Trend Analysis
May 28, 2025
Billie Eilish in support of the 'No Music on a Dead Planet' campaign
Sometimes Coldplay fuels a spinning class, and other times, spinning fuels a Coldplay concert. In 2021, after two years of avoiding touring due to environmental impact concerns, Coldplay announced their return with bold goals: to reduce their emissions by 50%, in comparison to their 2016-2017 tour, through changes in meals, implementation of electricity generating bikes and dance floors, and a conscious effort to cut down on carbon emissions where they could. In June 2024, they reported that they exceeded their goal, reducing emissions by 56%, and planting over seven million trees, one for every ticket sold.
Touring is taxing. Before the show even starts, the movement of large crews, sets, and instruments across continents is needed. It requires airplanes, food, and trucks that use up a lot of energy and generate tons of emissions. The movement to “green-out” tours isn’t led by Coldplay alone. Others, like Yungblud and Billie Eilish, have implemented fully plant-based catering and pushed toward a model that is less polluting and extractive. Eilish has also collaborated with, and helped fund, the American NGO Reverb, which specializes in reducing the industry’s carbon footprint.
Despite this, the show itself is just the tip of the iceberg. It doesn’t account for fan travel to the venue and, perhaps more significantly, how fans consume music in their everyday lives. Streaming revolutionized how we listen. It made everything accessible all the time, slowly pushing vinyl, cassettes, and CDs into obsolescence. It’s tempting to think this shift reduced waste, as fewer physical products should equal less clutter, but the data disagrees.
In an interview with The New Statesman, researcher Sharon George of Keele University explained that, as of October 2021, just five hours of streaming produced the same emissions as producing a single CD. For vinyl, the number jumps to 17 hours which, although higher, is still roughly carbon equivalent to the average listener buying a couple of records a week, every week.
Another report estimated that Spotify’s annual emissions for 2024 exceeded 174.55 million kgs of CO2, which is enough to fly from Amsterdam to LA almost 100,000 times. Further research from The New Statesman says that in its first year of release, the streaming of Olivia Rodrigo’s hit song, “drivers license,” emitted the equivalent to the annual carbon footprint of 500 people in the UK. This seems to suggest that buying physical media might be better from an environmental point of view, especially for music that fans know they will listen to multiple times. But as streaming pushed the business model toward touring and merch, the carbon cost kept climbing.
To strengthen their brand and maintain fan consumption, many major artists maximize physical product releases, hoping that their audiences will continue to buy them as a show of support. A prominent example is Taylor Swift, who released 17 different versions of the Folklore vinyl, and currently offers five editions of her newest album Midnights, encouraging fans to collect them all, and in turn help her rise in the charts. Similarly, Billie Eilish released Happier Than Ever in various vinyl colors, but took a more environmentally conscious approach by using recycled materials. Although she acknowledged that producing multiple pressings isn't entirely sustainable, she voiced her frustration in an interview with Billboard over artists who make no effort to reduce waste and curb rampant consumerism.
In the grand scheme of things, the music industry’s climate impact is relatively minor. Even one of its most extreme cases, Taylor Swift’s private jet usage, reportedly equivalent to the annual carbon footprint of around 1,000 Europeans, pales in comparison to the emissions produced by the energy, agriculture, or fashion sectors. Some might argue, then, that focusing on music’s environmental footprint is misguided. But there are two compelling reasons why it still matters.
First, concerts and festivals serve as a small microcosm of society. Implementing sustainable solutions, like reduced and meatless food options as well as optimizing energy and waste practices provide valuable insight on the organizational challenges of enacting similar measures at a larger scale. Researchers at the University of Amsterdam conducted an experiment in which they collected festival-goers’ urine in an effort to recycle phosphorus and contribute it to the dangerously depleting phosphate cycle, as a way to test out how similar protocols could apply at a larger scale.
Additionally, it was pointed out in a panel held by The Economist that these events can serve as a generational metering system. Reverb, the NGO that focuses on reducing the carbon footprint in the music industry, had an information booth at both Billie Eilish (who has a mainly Gen-Z audience) and Fleetwood Mac (whose demographic tends to be older) concerts. At the former, fans were eager to find out how to get involved and contribute, whereas at the latter, some found it interesting, but not much else.
More insightful and important than this, is that the music industry creates idols. The same reason why people are willing to buy 6 different editions of the same album, is why enacting change at the industry level could create greater impact. Historically, music has served as a driving force for change. Woodstock is tied to the anti-Vietnam war and Civil Rights Movement, and in South Africa, artists like Miriam Makeba and Hugh Masekela used their platforms to raise international awareness in resisting apartheid. Thus, starting with the music industry - which has proven instrumental in defining epochs - could be the key to make the transition toward widespread social awareness go faster and smoother. If fans see that the artists they look up to are committed to changing their industry for the better, (despite not being the most carbon-emitting sector) others could be pushed to do the same, and enact government figures who will advocate for a prosperous planet.
These changes are already underway. The international movement, No Music on a Dead Planet, created by the industry non-profit Music Declares, aims to mobilize both music professionals and fans to take climate action and raise awareness. It continues to grow each year, with support from major artists across its participating countries.
In Australia, Green Music Australia runs a range of sustainability initiatives, including Sound Country, a campaign that teaches artists to harness their platforms for communication and education. In a similar spirit, Billie Eilish used her 2023 Vogue cover to spotlight a group of climate activists, later releasing a filmed conversation with them, in an effort to motivate her fans, and audiences at large, to further engage with the matter.
It’s clear that music alone won’t solve the climate crisis. But right now, artists can motivate audiences in ways that policy cannot. If the industry comes together, it can send powerful messages that reduce waste and challenge consumerism. It can inspire people to pedal and dance–not only to power concerts, but to ignite a movement.
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