Coldplay Won’t Tour Until They Can Make it Sustainable

“All of us have to work out the best way of doing our job,” says lead singer Chris Martin. The British rock band told BBC News that the band wants their future tours to have a positive impact. “We’re taking time over the next year or two, to work out how our tour can not only be sustainable, [but] how can it be actively beneficial.” Coldplay is used to hitting the stage at concerts and music festivals all over the world. And who doesn’t love live music? The issue is (which people don’t usually think about) is that these events generate waste. A lot of waste. Think about all the moving parts of an event like a concert: transporting equipment and musicians produces tons of carbon emissions. And think of all those single-use wasteful products littering festival grounds- the plastic water bottles, cups and straws just discarded. These are just two examples of what amounts to an environmental nightmare. A UK report found that the music industry’s environmental impact suggests that live music in the UK alone generates 405,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year.