SXSW Goes Green by Mike Greenhouse (relix.com)

Austin’s influential South by Southwest Music, Film & Interactive Conferences (SXSW) will partner with Green Mountain Energy Company to offset 100% of carbon emissions arising from SXSW business activities. After partnering with the fellow Austin-based company, SXSW will be a carbon neutral company that intends to reduce carbon emissions where it can and purchase carbon offsets where it cannot. SXSW has offset 100% of 250 metric tons of carbon emissions by purchasing 376MW of Texas wind energy carbon credits from Green Mountain Energy Company. In addition, the company has given a $5000 donation to the Austin Parks Department for the purchase and maintenance of native trees.

“Once we set the goal for SXSW to achieve carbon neutral status, our staff took a very active hand in gathering all the pertinent information about our activities which generate carbon emissions,” says Managing Director Roland Swenson. “An important lesson we learned was that any business can achieve this goal with some work and a willingness to invest in new activity. While the amount of carbon emissions generated by SXSW alone is relatively small, if every business took similar steps, it would make a profound difference to our planet’s future.”

“SXSW recognizes that environmental issues are now an important measuring stick that distinguish one event from another and one company from another,” noted Una Johnston, SXSW’s UK & Ireland Manager and now its Environmental Consultant. She used the standards, guidelines and tools contained in the World Resources Institute’s GHG Protocol to calculate the carbon emissions for the year September 1, 2005 to August 31, 2006. SXSW agreed that this 12-month period would be designated as the baseline year in order to use it as the benchmark against which future reductions in carbon emissions can be measured.

Johnston calculated that SXSW carbon emissions arise from gas and electricity usage in its offices (18%), from electricity usage in the Austin Convention Center and all the showcase, movie and party venues that it contracts with during SXSW each year (55%), and also from business travel (27%).

“It’s important to say that SXSW is not simply offsetting its carbon emissions,” explained Johnston, “we are preparing an emission reduction strategy for the next four years as part of an environmental policy initiative. Roland and Eve have already taken steps to reduce our footprint by replacing the inefficient heating and cooling system in the office and adding insulation to the building. When SXSW takes place in March, the Festival will be working with Ecology Action of Austin to recycle all waste from our outdoor parties and events and will use biodiesel in generators and production trucks."

South by Southwest will take place at venues throughout Austin from March 9-18. While the conference’s official lineup has not been announced, a number of artists, ranging from Talking Heads founder David Byrne to rising rock outfit Steel Train have confirmed spots during the multi-day conference.

http://www.relix.com/content/view/2088/112/

Who Remembers Phish's Green Crew?

What is the Green Crew? How can I help?

What is it? The Green Crew is a collection of volunteers who make special effort to keep parking lots and entry areas clean, and thereby help keep venues and locals happy, Mother Nature stronger, and the history of Phish longer. At each show, between 40 and 80 volunteers collect bags of trash and recyclables before and after shows, and are provided with bags to help clean up after tens of thousands. (You could also bring your own, something worth doing for any show!) This represents a tremendous effort, and a superb opportunity for Phish fans to distinguish themselves from the sort of rabble that gets acts banned from locales and venues. To help out the Green Crew, follow some basic tenents, keep your trash bagged, bring extra bags for others, encourage others to bag their trash, and pick up a few bottles or cans before you leave the lot.

History: The group was started in the spring of 1994, informally associated with "Greenpeace Henry" (Henry Schwab; on the left) and "Greenpeace Mike" (Mike Hayes), who toured with Phish manning a Greenpeace table and later moved to found the Waterwheel Foundation; since then Green Crew (not affiliated with Waterwheel, and never affiliated with Greenpeace, contrary to popular conception) has been headed up by Shane Johnson .

Basic tenants: Glass, alcohol, and vending are generally not permitted in parking lots. Nonetheless, you may create or encounter trash. Please do your best to keep it in cans, or else bags, or at least organized piles (when and where neither cans or bags are available.) A great idea is to take a few (or a boxful of) heavy-duty trash bags to a show, even if you won't be creating any trash yourself! Put a bottle or two in each bag, to weight it against the wind, and place the bag in an obvious (easily visible) but not dangerous (won't be tripped on or driven over) place, and watch the warmth and colletivity of phans emerge. You'll be amazed how caring and careful people can be once they're given a chance, and a clear signal.

Black is trash, white recyc: At some shows, some volunteer fans have used this system: black trash bags for trash, and white trash bags for recyclables. Some such consistency would help make trash and bag collection easier, but take care to check before you toss something in -- it's not a fool-proof system yet, and people do flail. (If you have any other ideas that would help trash-collection and recycling efforts, we'd love to get them and put them on this page!)

How to join the G-Crew: Ultrafunk posted to rec.music.phish (on 12/18/96): Approximately 45 minutes following each show we meet somewhere usually in eye sight from the will-call office. Anyone is welcome to lend a hand. Ask Shane (tall, red hair, with a clipboard, irish-looking; but, and this makes things fun, not his twin brother (!) Shawn) for details.

Thanks also to Jack R. Lebowitz, Rosemary, Mike "Lerdawg", and Craig "AntlpeXing" .

http://www.phish.net/faq/greencrew.html

Umphrey's Green Efforts

Umphrey's Mcgee leads their fans to greener pastures.

11.06.06

Umphrey’s McGee feels very strongly about the importance of greening and environmental efforts. We recognize the environmental damage caused by extensive traveling and the global obligation we all share to assist in the repair. In addition to the below described programs, we will also be implementing new greening and CO2 offset programs throughout our 2007 tours. As a fan, you can make a difference simply by buying tickets through Umphrey’s Ticketing.

Buy a Ticket, Plant a Tree Program
Effective immediately, for every ticket that is purchased through Umphrey's Ticketing, Umphrey’s McGee will team up with “Trees for the Future” to plant one tree in some of the neediest areas of the world. You do nothing -- just buy a ticket and we will plant a tree! This is a win-win situation that we’re thrilled to be a part of. For more information, please visit www.treesftf.org.

CO2 Emissions Offset Program
As most of our fans travel regularly to shows, we’d like to encourage you to follow suit and recognize the responsibility we all share in repairing environmental damage. You can help the environment by offsetting your CO2 emissions on the way to the show.

This program gives fans the chance to offset the deforestation effects and carbon emissions damage created when traveling to attend live events. When you drive your car to an event, it emits harmful doses of CO2 that pollute our environment and promote global warming. A nominal donation of just $ 0.40 offsets the equivalent cost of damage from the CO2 produced by a fan that drives 150 miles to and from a concert. By helping fund the purchase of renewable energy sources you can offset this pollution. It’s a way of "picking up your trash on the way out" and is simply added onto your ticket transaction upon checkout. This is completely optional donation, but really adds up in the long run. If you regularly drive 100+ miles to see a show (which we appreciate), forty cents seems trivial when you think of all the environmental damage we personally can repair.

To participate in this program, simply check the option to the right of your ticketing checkout, and $0.40 cents will be added to your checkout cost. All proceeds go to NativeEnergy and are used to purchase renewable energy sources. For more info visit www.nativeenergy.com.

Thanks again for helping us to maximize the impact of these very important programs.

As always, we appreciate your support.

http://www.umphreys.com/home/news.php?newsId=197

What is this Blog about?

Since I began studying environmental policy at Indiana University in 1999, I have had a strong interest in the environment. Since I was a young child music has been important to me and influenced many of the greatest moments of my life. In 2002 I was fortunate enough to work for Clean Vibes for 12 days at the first Bonnaroo, which connected both of my passions, music and the environment. This blog is dedicated to music fans that want to share their experiences of trying to experience live music in an environmentally friendly way and to learn how to reduce the environmental impact of our music listening experience.

Topics I hope to write about include:

• How do I recycle all of my old bootleg tapes?
• How do I recycle all of my old CD's that I loaded onto iTunes?
• What are some green touring initiatives such as those recently undertaken by Umphreys Mcgee and those in the past such as Clean Vibes and Phish Green Crew?
• What are the environmental impacts of tapes, cd's, dvd's, electronics and the like that all of us music lovers from time to time need to recycle?
• Individual show, festival, and artist's reviews and observations on the connection between the environment and music.
• How will climate change affect our favorite venues (i.e. Isn't Jones Beach right on the water?)
• How will increasing energy prices affect ticket prices?
• Do any venues recycle my beer bottles?
• Does anyone in the "lot" (on shakedown) sell organic food?