Music festivals seek greener footprint

Three planes, 270 tonnes of equipment, 800 square metres of stage: the figures from Madonna's massive free concert in Rio in May sounded like they came from another age.

These days, megastars are usually keener to claim a smaller footprint.

Coldplay, who just headlined Glastonbury Festival in the U.K., recently announced they had cut carbon emissions on their world tour by 59-percent compared with their last tour in 2016-17.

They have taken innovative steps including solar panels and even a special dance floor that generates electricity from the movement of the audience.

Critics point out they are still flying around on planes, and there was particularly opprobrium in 2022 when they announced a partnership with Finnish oil giant Neste.

Though Neste promised to help them use sustainable biofuels, the Transport and Environment campaign group said Coldplay were being used by the oil firm as "useful idiots for greenwashing."

Though the overall impact is hard to measure, one study by University of Oxford's Environmental Change Institute in 2010 estimated that Britain's industry alone generated 540,000 tonnes of carbon emissions annually.

Climate group Clean Scene found that the top 1,000 DJs took 51,000 flights in 2019, equivalent to 35,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

As a result, all the big festivals now have climate pledges and initiatives, from composting and car-pooling schemes at Coachella in California to renewable energy usage at Glastonbury.

One festival that has taken a lead is We Love Green in Paris, as the name suggests.

Some 110,000 festival-goers attended last month's event to see artists including Sza, who travelled with "almost no equipment" according to Marianne Hocquard, the festival's...