The last thing the music industry needs is a lecture on climate change. Musicians and song writers have been campaigning against and writing songs about poverty, injustice and now global warming, for a decade.
So forget the political posturing of Live Earth, rock bands and pop groups have been making themselves heard by performing at all sorts of genuinely motivated benefit gigs and festivals to raise awareness of climate change, long before 7/7/07.
Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead topped the bill at `The Big Ask Live’ in London (1 May). The sell out concert was held in support of The Big Ask (www.thebigask.com/), Friends of the Earths climate campaign, and also stared Gruff Rhys, lead singer of the Super Furry Animals and top UK folk singer Kate Rusby. Other supporters of FOLE include Johnny Borrell from Razorlight, Damien of Badly Drawn Boy, Ash and James Blunt. While at Christian Aid’s ‘Cut the Carbon’ concerts, Nazmul Chowdhury, organiser, said: ‘Forget about making poverty history. Climate change will make poverty permanent.’
Stadium rock bands such as Pearl Jam say they are making their tours carbon neutral by offsetting their private jet travel and concert emissions. Others are releasing carbon neutral CDs. While Coldplay, Foo Fighters and the Rolling Stones have also taken to planting trees as a way of offsetting their greenhouse gas emissions. Unfortunately, the early forestation projects, so beloved of rock bands, have been shown in hindsight to have fatal flaws*.
Musicians are searching for ways to take credible action on climate change, and it’s just arrived in the most unexpected form, ‘tour T-shirts’. Continental Clothing, a veteran supplier of fashion blanks to the music industry, has just launched ‘EarthPositive climate neutral’ apparel, ‘T-shirts to combat climate change’. This is tour merchandise made solely using renewable wind energy and solar power, from ‘low impact’ organic cotton, and made as ethically as possible (www.EarthPositiveOnline.com).
“This is a first for the clothing industry, and a first for the music industry. It allows musicians to print their message onto a blank canvas that already has positive (environmental, social and ethical) values, and which proves that action on climate change can be real, immediate, and come from the most unexpected places.”
Thom Yorke from Radiohead who helped launch The Big Ask campaign in May 2005 said: “The best thing… for me is the fact that there’s no longer this sense of powerlessness, which is what I had for so long about climate change.”
Continental Clothing have demonstrated that they have reduced the carbon emissions of their EarthPositive tour T-shirts by 95%. “We know the music industry is all about the dollar, so we designed EarthPositive apparel with a price point that makes it a real ethical and viable alternative to a ‘cheap promo’ tour T-shirt. If your music merchandise company doesn’t already offer you EarthPositive in their product portfolio, please ask them to contact Continental directly.”
For concert merchandise, tour merchandise, and festivals. In terms of the classic black tour T-shirt – ‘green‘ really is the new black.
Continental Clothing Company won the Outstanding Performance 2010 Award at the inaugural Ethical Corporation Awards celebrations of excellence in responsible business practice.
