There are many online resources and services available to assist you and your company in calculating and understanding your Carbon Footprint.   Some recommended sites include:

1. Live Earth Live Impact Calculator
2. Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth / Climate Crisis Site Calculator
3. The Nature Conservatory’s Carbon Footprint Calculator
4. Carbon Footprint Calculator
5. Environmental Protection Agency’s Calculator

Additionally, there are these recommended books available on Amazon.com for pages of detailed information:

1. Carbon Strategies: How Leading Companies Are Reducing Their Climate Change Footprint
2. How to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint: 365 Simple Ways to Save Energy, Resources, and Money

Running a music business takes energy.  No matter how “Green” you become you still require electricity to keep you business going, but there is a way to completely eliminate your Carbon Footprint using “Green Tags.”  Green Tags are renewable energy credits that you our your company can buy to offset your energy use.

Sub Pop Records (Nirvana, The Shins, Postal Service, and more) became the first Green-e certified record label in the United States in July of 2006 by purchasing Green-e Certified Green Tags to offset 100% of their energy consumption.

To embark upon the zero carbon footprint path, you must first calculate your organizations carbon footprint using one of several resources available in the Carbon Footprint section of our Resources page.

An article we discovered on National Geographic’s Green Guide speaks to the awakening of the Music Industry in exploring greener tour options, greener labels and eco-friendly fans.

Sarah Lipman writes about how some of today’s top acts are doing their part including “an increasing number of artists like John Mayer, The Fray, Bon Jovi and Incubus, are working with environmental organizations such as Reverb, Heal the Bay and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) to take new initiatives to revamp and “green” their concerts both on and offstage.”

As touring is an area where there is much room for improvement it is important to know tsome of the not-so-green facts about this critical part of our industry.  Sarah continues, “the music industry contributes 150,000 tons of carbon emissions annually through tour buses alone…  a single stadium show can contribute 500 to 1,000 tons of CO2 emissions… a typical mid-size venue can go through 470,000 plastic cups, 200,000 napkins and 600 light bulbs each year.”

When examining what record labels can do, the focus shifts to CD packaging. “Major labels have invested in greener efforts of their own, including reducing waste, purchasing carbon offsets and, most significantly, replacing CD packaging with more eco-sound materials.”  Alternatively, everyone of us can make the effort to push this industry further along in the adoption of a full digital promotion and sales model so we don’t need to bother with plastic CDs and their packaging.  See the Resources page for ideas.

So what’s the “Eco-Friendly Fan” to do?  The Green Guide suggests that fans push venues to provide recycling facilities, carpool or take public transport to gigs, and buy organic cotton or hemp T-shirts.

We’ll… it certainly is a start.

To view the full original article visit here.