Music is great. Intimate gigs in band rooms are awesome. And festivals are the best thing on earth. If you read this blog regularly, I’m sure you’ll agree with these statements.
But like any other big venture, live entertainment requires heaps of resources, from electricity to power the site to catering for all staff and ensuring punters safety on-site. It also produces other negative environmental effects, like campsite waste or excessive noise.
The music industry has finally started noticing this issue. Interestingly, though, the most innovative projects aiming to change the game are the grassroots ones, created and spearheaded by musicians. And this is what FEAT. is all about.
Heidi Lenffer was on the road in Australia with her band, Cloud Control, when she started thinking about what that meant for the environment.
So she decided to dig into it. With the help of some experts in the field, she came up with some revealing statistics.
Based on an actual tour with 15 gigs played in different places in Oz, the band had to take 44 flights, having travelled nearly 16,500 air kilometres and over 1,800 road kilometres. All that resulted in 28 tonnes of carbon emissions. TWENTY. EIGHT. TONNES.
Let me put that in perspective for you. It’s the same amount an average household produces in a year. Shocking doesn’t even begin to describe it, right?
But there’s even more bad news on that front. Our usual go-to solution – offsetting – is not going to cut it anymore. Being reactive by setting aside a part of the touring revenue to plant trees, for example, is not good enough to reduce this huge environmental impact.
Needless to say, Heidi decided to do something about it. And this, in a nutshell, is how FEAT. came to life.
The acronym stands for Future Energy Artists. And not only is it the world-first initiative of this kind, led by musicians, but it is also backed by science and professionals in the sustainability field. Because the aim is to produce tangible results.
The project’s foundations are based on three simple pillars:
- the power of live music,
- the reality of the climate crisis,
- and the need to rapidly transition to a renewables-based economy.
But beyond the mission to help solve the climate crisis, the organisation also believes that any business (including live entertainment) can both make a positive impact and be profitable for its members. This was the idea behind FEAT.’s first project, the solar farms.
Heidi describes it in one of her blog posts:
“We’ve launched a company where artists can invest to own part of a solar farm and reshape the environmental legacy of our touring. These are investments, not donations. Artists will be making hardcore solar infrastructure investments and can expect to see annual returns. You could think of it like ‘solar royalties’, and we’ve set the minimum investment as low as possible to encourage all artists to get involved.“
Line 1: Vance Joy, Montaigne, Didirri,
Line 2: Jack River, Cloud Control, Mansionair
Line 3: Peking Duk, Vallis Alps, Big Scary
Line 4: The Rubens, Set Mo, The Jezabels
As a result, a bunch of Aussie acts signed up for this ambitious and innovative project. Among them are some I call “the usual suspects”, or the ones who frequently advocate for noble causes in the industry. Names like Jack River, Montaigne, The Rubens or Peking Duk might ring a bell.
When FEAT. was launched in June 2019, the founder had already done a lot of the groundwork with relevant stakeholders. But back then, nobody knew exactly how long it would take to make the Brigalow Solar Farm a reality.
Heidi recounts all the obstacles and struggles on the blog.
Obviously, COVID slowed down the progress. The project also needed to be properly assessed and tested to comply with the regulator’s requirements. So nearly two years after FEAT.’s official beginnings it finally reached the major milestone of ‘practical completion’.
And just so you grasp how big of an achievement it is, here is a description of its production capacities:
“Thanks to the support of hundreds of Australians from different walks of life, there is now a big, beautiful new solar farm in rural Queensland pumping out 35 MW of clean energy every day for the next 30+ years. This is enough clean energy to power 11,000+ homes without any of the usual toxic emissions and massive amounts of fresh water that coal and gas-fired power stations consume.”
So it was now May 2021. And after successfully setting up the Brigalow Solar Farm project, Heidi could have just patted herself on the back and moved on. But if you think she just rested on her laurels, you clearly underestimate her determination to create positive change in the live entertainment sector.
Welcome to the second chapter of this sustainable journey, aka FEAT. Live. Here, the key to understanding everything is the “Solar Slice”.
The best way to describe it is probably like a tip in a restaurant. Except it’s not for a job done exceptionally well during the service. It’s an investment in a greener future for both artists and music fans.
In other words, FEAT. is striving to forge a new industry norm. How? By suggesting that a percentage of every ticket sold to a live event should contribute to action on climate change.
They recommend a 1.5% surcharge. And that is not a randomly chosen amount. If you follow the climate crisis conversations closely, you’ll recognise it as a reference to the 1.5-degree warming target set by the Paris Climate Agreement.
But because the term “additional tax on the ticket price” inadvertently makes us think of Ticketmaster/Live Nation’s ridiculous practices, I was very keen to find out more about FEAT.’s idea. And I couldn’t have asked for a better guide.
Beatrice (Bea) Jeavons, who’s now steering the ship in Heidi’s absence, walked me smoothly through the specifics.
Bea is a creative producer and sustainability consultant. She has worked with Green Music Australia, Adelaide Festival and artist Tim Minchin in that space, among many other projects.
She describes her work as “making some fun things happen without costing the earth.” Very accurately, I should add. Because her passion for the environment and her knowledge of ways to engage different kinds of stakeholders to “party with the planet” responsibly are mind-blowing.
So hear more about her journey to working in the sustainability and live entertainment setting. Find out how FEAT. is transforming the way we think about gigs and festivals. And let Bea also give you a practical example of a collaboration with the Aussie band Lime Cordiale.
All that and more in the fourth instalment of my “Silly & Green” video interview series. Watch it here below.
P.S. Check out more FEAT. resources under this link.
Find out about more sustainable music projects from Australia:
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