Category: Partner Blogs

Live Nation Entertainment, the world’s leading live entertainment company, today introduced the Green Nation Touring Program, which is developing industry-leading guidance and best practices to enhance the sustainability of concert tours. 

The Green Nation Touring Program will allow Live Nation to help artists adopt and scale sustainable touring practices that prioritize people and planet. There will be focus on driving impact across all areas of the tour, including:

• PLANNING: green venue selection, maximize efficient routing, evaluate transportation options, and more
• PRODUCTION: stage design to power requirements can also be measured and optimized
• SOURCING: conscious and equitable sourcing options across merch, catering and other vendor supplies
• COMMUNITY: enhancing engagement with every community that touches a tour from fans, to crew, to the local market and brand partners

Live Nation just completed a global sustainability study, in which 82% of live music goers said they strive to maintain an environmentally sustainable lifestyle. And a key element of the program will be providing concertgoers with more sustainable options while attending shows. 

“Live Nation has the opportunity and the responsibility to provide artists and fans with live music experiences that protect our planet,” said Michael Rapino, President and CEO, Live Nation Entertainment. “We’re inspired by artists who are continually pushing for greener options, and as we develop those best practices the Green Nation Touring Program will help make them standards in the industry so collectively we can all make the biggest impact possible.”

To help drive these efforts on a global scale, Live Nation has elevated Lucy August-Perna to Director, Global Sustainability. August-Perna has been with Live Nation since 2016 leading efforts to integrate sustainability measures like waste reduction, energy efficiency, and fan and employee engagement across all Live Nation owned and operated venues in the U.S. Prior to Live Nation she spent nearly a decade working with touring artists on environmental impact reduction strategies. 

To track and measure these efforts, Green Nation is establishing standardized impact measurement tools for worldwide operations, and created a venue survey to assess the sustainability of 3rd party venue options. Green Nation has also enlisted the UK based not-for-profit think tank and creative consultant Julie’s Bicycle to collaborate on new tools, resources, and a green tour certification scheme to help expedite adoption of these touring practices and catalyze industry action.

The touring program continues to expand on Live Nation’s Green Nation sustainability charter, which focuses on Climate Action and decarbonization of venue energy & transportation; Protection and regeneration of nature through responsible sourcing and consumption practices; as well as Community Engagement across artists, fans, employees, sponsors, vendors, and local communities. 

Live Nation is committed to evolving low-carbon and regenerative practices across its portfolio and recognizes the lasting impact the company can make by striving to enhance sustainability across the 40,000 shows and 100+ festivals it hosts over 40 countries around the world in a typical year. 

Over the past decade, the sports, entertainment, and live events industry has searched for alternatives to single-use plastic in food concessions. As fans return to sporting arenas and concert-goers celebrate the return of music festivals, sustainability issues at events and venues are coming back into focus – specifically, the ever-present disposable plastic cup. 

Many attempts at solutions have been introduced, from bioplastic cups to reuse systems and now single-use aluminum. But there has been no clear scientific consensus as to which options have the greatest environmental impact and which options have the least – until now.  

IMPACT HIGHLIGHTS

45,500+ ACTIONS TAKEN BY FANS AT SHOWS
SUPPORTING IMPORTANT SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES

$1.5 MILLION+ RAISED
SUPPORTING DEAD FAMILY ORGANIZATIONS

CLIMATE POSITIVE TOUR
THIS TOUR ELIMINATED MORE THAN 5 TIMES THE EMISSIONS THAT IT CREATED INCLUDING FAN TRAVEL TO AND FROM SHOWS

$577,000+ TO SUPPORT GREENHOUSE GAS ELIMINATION
FUNDING GLOBAL PROJECTS

19,000+ SINGLE-USE PLASTIC BOTTLES ELIMINATED
AT SHOWS ON THE 2021 TOUR

Rebecca Prince-Ruiz, Founder and Executive Director of the Plastic Free Foundation, a nonprofit organization that organizes the annual Plastic Free July challenge, has more than twenty-five years’ experience in the world of environmental and waste management, community engagement, and sustainability behaviour change. In 2011, Prince-Ruiz started the Plastic Free July Challenge, where, what started as a grassroots campaign with a handful of participants in Western Australia has now grown to millions of people across 170 countries taking up the challenge to refuse single-use plastic every year.

What motivated you to start the Plastic Free July challenge? 

It really started with the challenge but I’ve always been mindful of how the changes on land have an impact on our waterways. I lived on a farm when I was younger, where we had to lose the farm when I was eight. This small farm was in Southwestern Australia, where we cleared natural brush. As the clearing happened, salt rose to the surface and there had to be clearing bans. I was so devastated, because we loved our farm and didn’t want to move.

Seeing the amount of plastic that exists really spurred me to start the challenge. When I visited a recycling facility and saw the volume of waste we produce, and understood the complex process of what happens to our waste once we throw it away, it made me realize that I wasn’t doing the planet a favor by filling up the recycling bin.

For decades Oniracom has proudly supported all of the Jack Johnson camp’s nonprofit initiatives as a marketing and technology partner including the Kokua Hawaii Foundation and its Kokua Festival, Plastic Free Hawaii, Johnson Ohana Foundation, All At Once, and most recently BYOBottle.org.

The collaborative BYOBottle Campaign encourages artists, venues, festivals, businesses and fans to reduce plastic pollution in the music industry by promoting reusable water bottles and water refill stations both backstage and front of house at music events.

When I started working with the live event industry to reduce the environmental footprint of large events, festivals and tours almost three decades ago, recycling bins didn’t exist. Bands weren’t touring on biodiesel-fueled buses and seeking out organic and locally-grown meals. Live Nation didn’t exist, and hadn’t yet hired sustainability coordinators at 14 venues.

“Jack is proud to announce the 2018 All At Once Sustainability Awards to acknowledge outstanding music industry recipients, honoring elite venues, festivals and promoters who excelled in waste reduction and sustainability and made every effort to meet Jack’s Environmental Rider during his 2017-18 World Tour. The recipients join the ranks of previous winners, including the Santa Barbara Bowl, Merriweather Post Pavilion and the Nikon at Jones Beach Theater, all of which continue to take their venue greening to the next level…”

“Wonderfruit, Thailand’s pioneering, sustainable celebration of art and music has eliminated single-use plastic for its upcoming festival Dec. 14-17 in Pattaya, Thailand. The move is in line with Wonderfruit’s fundamental ethos of sustainability and community.

After joining Plastic Pollution Coalition earlier this year, Wonderfruit made major changes to reduce the festival’s plastic footprint:

• “Wonderers” are encouraged to bring their own bamboo or steel flasks and bottles.

• All food will be served on compostable tableware. Wonder Feasts will be served on areca nut palm leaf plates.

• Drinks will be poured into cups made of bagasse, the fibre that remains after sugarcane stalks are crushed to extract their juice.

• Reusable steel cups will be available for purchase…”

“All the lights above us, you can see the different colors, all those little bits are from the beaches in Hawaii, which is kind of like a filter out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, collecting all the plastic that’s floating in,” said musician and activist Jack Johnson to the crowd of cheering fans at the Santa Barbara Bowl on Tuesday night.

The Monday and Tuesday night shows were his first events to be 100 percent free of single-use plastic: no single-use plastic cups or water bottles were for sale at the venue. After both shows, event organizers were stunned to see no garbage anywhere on the ground. How did they do it?”

“As Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival came to a close on Sunday, John Borg of Steelys Drinkware together with Plastic Pollution Coalition announced that more than 2 million plastic cups and water bottles were diverted from landfill through the Refill Revolution program since the inception of this program. 2017 marked the fourth year that Plastic Pollution Coalition partnered with Bonnaroo and Steelys to provide Refill Revolution branded reusable steel cups that eliminate the need for single-use plastic cups and bottles. 

This year, a number of musicians, actors, artists, and leaders added their voices to the Refill Revolution movement, including U2’s The Edge, actor and activist Adrian Grenier, and leaders of environmental organizations…“