Sustainability is a hot topic in the music industry today, as more and more fans call for accountability from their favorite artists. From the methods of manufacturing and producing merch to the electricity used to power entire venues, nearly every facet of the industry carries an environmental cost.
REVERB, a nonprofit spearheading the sustainability movement in music, is all too aware of those impacts. Since 2004, they’ve been tackling them head-on, “greening” tours and venues, neutralizing carbon emissions, and fundraising over $16 million for various environmental causes.
Chris Spinato, the director of communications at REVERB, has been with the company for nearly 10 years. And although the organization has been adding new musicians to their long-standing roster — which includes Billie Eilish, Dave Matthews Band, John Mayer, and Jack Johnson — and expanding their festival reach, Spinato said their “core work remains unchanged.”
“We help partners identify their sustainability goals and then create custom programs to meet and usually exceed what they’re hoping to achieve,” Spinato told the Goodnewspaper.
On most tours, that means sending an on-site sustainability coordinator on the road with the respective bands.
“They’re sort of like a guitar tech, but instead of restringing and adjusting guitars, they’re making sure that sustainability efforts are happening,” Spinato explained. “Those efforts include steps to reduce single-use plastic waste, divert landfill waste, and lower carbon emissions, among much else. The same is true at festivals and venues.”
Spinato has seen the landscape of the live music world change over the last decade. In the past, their team used to fight tooth and nail to get venues to allow entry of reusable water bottles, offer recycling bins, and install refillable water stations — now they’ve become the new norm.
But the majority of festivals are still immensely wasteful, and it largely comes down to landfill waste and carbon costs.
According to Musicians for Sustainability, concerts annually produce more than 116 million pounds of waste each year and emit 400,000 tons of carbon emissions; and that’s just in the U.S.
When it comes to fossil fuels, Spinato said REVERB is making efforts to divert carbon emissions through the organization’s Music Decarbonization Project.
Image via Raph_PH / Flickr
“This effort has been entirely funded by artists and industry partners and is helping to rapidly decrease or eliminate carbon emissions and accelerate the shift away from fossil fuels,” Spinato said. “In 2023, the program helped to decarbonize Billie Eilish’s headline set at Lollapalooza and Willie Nelson’s Luck Reunion by powering stages with solar-charged intelligent battery systems rather than highly-polluting diesel generators. “
Spinato is not starry-eyed when it comes to climate justice — but he is motivated.
“Despite the challenges that still remain both in music and generally as we all face the worsening climate crisis, we have hope,” Spinato said. “It’s not hope in the sense that we hope things get better. It’s a hope gained through taking action and seeing the millions of people that are working to create a better future for people and the planet.”
Climate doom wins when people feel defeated by climate change, but it can be combated by the knowledge that no one is alone in it. Spinato points out that REVERB does not exist in a vacuum; it relies on countless employees, volunteers, nonprofit organizations, and artists leading the charge for change — and the teeming crowds of fans that support them.
“It may be a little cliché, but music really is a universal language. It connects people in a way that really nothing else can,” Spinato said.
“Music creates community, built around a shared love of and connection to an artist, which comes to life at concerts. Concerts are incredibly positive, energetic events. So you have people coming together around a shared love, in a great mood, filled with energy. … What better place to talk to people about taking action for people and the planet!?”
A version of this article originally appeared in the 2024 Music Edition of the Goodnewspaper.
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Header image via Raph_PH / Flickr
