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Tim Minchin and Live Nation’s Green Nation join forced to support environmentally sustainable touring
It's cool to be GREEN!
Australian comedian, actor, and musician Tim Minchin has teamed up with promoter Live Nation’s Green Nation initiative and other key organisations, to support sustainability and minimising environmental impact while on tour.
As part of his 2021 Australian and New Zealand ‘BACK’ tour, Minchin, his touring party and crew took actions to minimise the environmental impact of the tour where possible, including upcycling merchandise, developing a green rider, and encouraging fans to engage within local communities to create sustainable, environmental change in their own backyard.
Minchin’s ‘Greening’ initiative, in association with Live Nation and Ticketmaster, have produced a video and some recommendations based on key learnings and evolving practice.
Watch the video below:
One key initiative included a day planting Indigenous trees at Lot 50-Kanyanyapilla, a bi-cultural biodiversity regeneration project near McLaren Vale, an hour south of Adelaide, South Australia.
Minchin, alongside 12 of his crew, planted 20 different indigenous woodland, swamp edge and sedgeland species to rebuild habitat and biodiversity in the area which is an ancient Kaurna Meyunna campground.
Being kinder to the environment requires a whole spectrum of responses, from adjustments in government policy right down to personal actions. Our goal was three-pronged: we wanted to try to reduce our carbon footprint, we wanted to learn more about carbon neutral practices, and we wanted to share our learning with our audience and the broader industry. The BACK Greening project has actually been really good fun, and goes some way to relieving my carbon guilt, which is in my top ten guilts.
Tim Minchin says
In addition to support from Live Nation, the tour enlisted the help of Sustainability Consultant, Beatrice Jeavons. The team worked with a number of environmental organisations, including EcoCaddy, Bio-R and Common Ground.
QR codes printed on plantable seed cards made of recycled paper connected audiences with local environmental campaigns and intiatives. These links provided opportunities to engage in direct action tackling challenges ranging from food waste to clean energy and to learn more about climate change and be part of the solutions.
We have started the journey across the BACK tour and it’s all still a work in progress. So many incredible people and orgnisations are tackling the climate crisis head on. By engaging in these local, grass roots activities we are striving to reduce the tour’s footprint but also educate ourselves and the community on the importance of these kinds of initiatives and how people can get involved in their own backyard.
Beatrice Jeavons says
Since the launch of Green Nation in 2019, Live Nation events and venues around the globe have introduced environmentally friendly practices to foster a culture of sustainability and lower carbon emissions.
Other sustainable initiatives across the Live Nation and Ticketmaster businesses include, at Live Nation’s Spark Arena in Auckland (NZ), all food waste is composted outside of the city and sold to local Kiwi growers, enhancing local employment and skilling while combating food waste. Similar initiatives have been enforced in the UK and US, where venues across Europe and the US have eliminated single-use plastics.
At Ticketmaster, we have driven the shift towards digital tickets which plays an important role in reducing waste associated with the printing of paper-based tickets.
For more information on Tim Minchin’s ‘Greening’ initiative, head here.
