Massive Attack Commission In-Depth Study of Touring's Environmental Impact

"To create systemic change there is no real alternative to collective action.”

Massive Attack is launching a major study of live music's carbon imprint.

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In an effort to pinpoint and systematically amend the live music industry's carbon footprint, the British experimentalists have partnered with the UK's Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, to "map thoroughly the carbon footprint of band tour cycles, and to present options that can be implemented quickly," according to a press release. The study will focus on audience transportation and venue power (which account for 93% of carbon emissions associated with big-ticket live shows,) as well as production and band travel, hoping to develop standards that can be scaled up and adapted by the industry-at-large.

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Earlier this week, Robert "3D" Del Naja explained the measures Massive Attack implemented over the last twenty years to mitigate their own on-tour imprint in an op-ed for The Guardian. Naja notes a wide range of protocols to mitigate and offset their own on-tour imprint, banning single-use plastics, planting trees, travelling by train whenever it's an option, and even considered giving up touring altogether. He concludes, however, that "offsetting" only shifts the responsibility of minimizing emissions to others and that single initiatives like those Massive Attack underwent could only be insufficient in addressing a systemic crisis.