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Ideas for Greener Touring

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Touring is a vital part of many musicians’ careers, but also carries an environmental impact which more and more artists are concerned about. This resource offers an overview of how to think about music’s relationship to the climate crisis, along with practical tools, examples, and funding information to help you approach touring in more sustainable ways.

1. Understanding Music’s Impact on Emissions

It’s important to begin with context. The narrative that individual responsibility is the main driver of the climate crisis was largely shaped by major polluters (e.g., BP’s invention of the “carbon footprint”). Even if all musicians stopped touring tomorrow, it would not solve the crisis.

However, music does have an impact, and importantly, music has cultural visibility. Artists can help shift norms, just as society shifted away from plastic bags, harmful CFCs, and indoor smoking.

Where do emissions come from in music?

For most artists, the biggest impacts include:

  • Artist travel (often around 20% of their total emissions)
  • Transport of equipment
  • Audience travel
  • Venue energy use
  • Accommodation
  • Merch production

2. Tools & Resources for Planning Sustainable Tours

Carbon calculators & measurement tools

These can help you gather data, estimate impacts, and start making informed decisions.

3. Travel: Considerations to reduce emissions

Can you travel lighter?

  • Where possible: borrow/rent instruments or tech at the venue, share transport, or reduce luggage.

Local or regional touring

  • Keeping events closer to home reduces artist and audience travel.

Slow travel

  • Travelling by train/bus can dramatically reduce emissions. For example, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment saved 6.1 metric tons of carbon on a tour by changing travel choices: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sU-ahyceFdA
  • BUT: slow travel is often slower and more expensive. This is where funding considerations (below) become crucial.

Tour routing & deeper engagement

If you’re already travelling, consider trying to expand the work you're doing in an area. The fly-in, fly-out model is one many artists and organisers are trying to move away from where possible. Possibilities include:

  • Adding extra dates in the region
  • Workshops, talks, outreach
  • Linking with promoters who are committed to low-carbon touring

Decision tools

4. Communicating Your Sustainability Efforts

Visibility matters. Sharing your decisions publicly can help “de-normalise” harmful practices.

Ways to communicate:

Audience engagement

Audience travel is usually considered to be the largest source of emissions related to live music events. Artists’ connection with their audiences can be used to encourage changes in audience behaviour, eg

  • A short sustainability video for audiences visible for promoters/press in your EPK, or clearly on your social media/website
  • Rewards for audiences who travel by bus/train/carpool (e.g., merch discounts)

4. Green Riders & Venue Practices

A “green rider” helps communicate your needs to promoters and venues.

Green rider resources

Common sections include:

  • Food & drink: vegan/vegetarian options, local/seasonal food, low-waste catering
  • Energy & water: responsible usage
  • Waste management: recycling, no single-use plastics
  • Per diems: If venues cannot meet green rider requests, a per diem may be more sustainable.

Accommodation & Spaces

Many venues, spaces and accommodation have details about their sustainability journey available which you can check when planning tours, eg

5. Other Environmental Impacts

Royalties & Banking

Placing of bank accounts and any other finance eg pensions can have larger associated impact than individual lifestyle choices

  • Planet-positive royalty programme created by Brian Eno names Nature as a co-writer on works to funnel a percentage of royalties towards environmental initiatives: https://www.soundsright.earth/
  • Ethical financial choices can be checked via: https://bank.green/

Merchandise

You can consider the production of any merchandise you have and its impact - some artists favour on-demand production to reduce waste, or prioritise reused materials where appropriate. Reductions can also be made within the production of conventional merch, eg

Some artists work with existing brands who produce sustainable products for their merchandise, even where it’s not entirely conventional merch.

6. Funding & Support

More funders are beginning to require or favour sustainability measures. This can help offset the cost of low-carbon touring.

Opportunities & programmes specific to environmental arts practice

Arts Council Ireland - general funding

  • Sustainability is increasingly prioritised across funding strands, with some funding schemes requiring climate action plans as part of applications or as a condition of funding.
  • Accessibility funding is separate, meaning additional costs for slow travel due to access needs, caring responsibilities, etc., can be supported.
  • Arts Council Climate Action Consultation: https://www.artscouncil.ie/upl...(1).pdf

7. Music, Imagination & Climate Action

Music is deeply connected to gatherings, community, imagination, and future-thinking. Many climate-focused events already centre artistic practice. If this is an area of practice you are interested in, some ideas that might be useful below.

Examples of arts & climate initiatives, or climate initiatives which include arts

Environmental art projects


Bigger-picture concepts that can inform art practices

  • Degrowth: moving away from extractive systems towards regenerative, connected ones
  • Denormalising capitalist structures
  • Democracy at Work & collective models: https://www.democracyatwork.in...

Campaigning & collective action

General Resources

Better Live (improvised music specific) tools/courses: https://training.betterlivemus...

On the Move – cultural mobility & sustainability: https://on-the-move.org/resour...

Julie’s Bicycle (broad sustainability resources) https://juliesbicycle.com/

Landscape Music Training: https://training.landscape-music.eu/en/

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