Jack Johnson is continually hailed as one of the most green artists.  The on-going education he provides to the music industry and fans about what it means to be a green artist inspires and challenges us all.   For more about what you can do as a green touring artist to both reduce and offset your carbon impacts visit the “greening” section on Jack’s website.

1% For The Planet is a global movement of 1236 businesses and musicians who giveback one percent of their sales toward their choice of over 1800 environmental charities, services programs.  1% for the Planet exists to build and support an alliance of businesses financially committed to creating a healthy planet.  The YouTube video below shows Jack’s continued support for 1% For The Planet.

With a continued focus on European youth, the Play To Stop campaign, launched a new viral video called “Demand action until you´re blue in the face.” The video is also part of Oxfam’s Be Humankind campaign.   You can visit the Oxfam Blue Faces site to view over 7000 user submitted blue faces photos taken at U.K music festivals.

The song featured throughout the video is “Right Here Right Now” by Fatboy Slim available on iTunes.

MTV and Climate Action of the European Commission recently launched a campaign to win over the minds of today’s music loving youth with the launch of the Play to Stop website and series of concerts performed by top talent.

Moby’s recent free shows began at the Hotel Rival in Stockholm, Sweden on Thursday, August 20th.   Although the campaign is targeted at 11 European countries (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Sweden and the UK), the MTV concerts will only be performed in Budapest, Stockholm and Copenhagen.

While supplies last, free tickets are available just by sending an email to play4climate@mtvne.com.

If you care about the environment and are a music fan or artist then maybe you should be writing for us?   Have you used WordPress before or do you have your own blog site?  Are you a freelance writer with some time on your hands?  Why not work with us to keep up with everything that is going on green in the music business.  Help us build awareness and build our online community.

Visit our New Member Request page to sign up today.

We have had our MySpace page for a while and thank everyone who has become our friends there, but we are certainly late to the twitter-revolution.   So finally we are joining the conversation on Twitter as “green_music“. We have added a twitter widget to our blog sidebar and are starting to follow many of the green organizations, resources, services and artists that we have written about.  Also, you can click the small “Tweet This” icon at the bottom of any of our posts to quickly tweet about one of our posts… and raise awareness about the Green Music Alliance

We look forward to you following us too.

On August 17th, a new study (Christopher L. Weber, Jonathan G. Koomey, and H. Scott Matthews) was released called “The Energy and Climate Change Impacts of Different Music Delivery Methods.”  While we might all agree that the conclusion that going digital reduces your carbon footprint is rather obvious, it’s worth a moment to read the study to better understand the many components of the traditional CD manufacturing and delivery processes that add up to the larger carbon footprint of this now fading music format.

This study assesses the energy and CO2 emissions associated with several alternative methods for delivering one album of music to a final customer, either via traditional retail or e-commerce sales of compact discs or via a digital download service. We analyze a set of six (3 compact disc and 3 digital download) scenarios of the delivery of one music album from the recording stage to the consumer’s home in either CD or digital form. The scenarios were:

1. Album published on CD and delivered via traditional retail methods
2. Album published on CD and delivered by light-duty truck through an online e-tail provider
3. Album published on CD and delivered by express air through an online e-tail provider
4. Album downloaded as mp3/mp4 files from an online music service and used digitally
5. Album downloaded as mp3/mp4 files from an online music service and burned to CD-R for digital and CD use (no CD packaging)
6. Album downloaded as mp3/mp4 files from an online music service and burned to CD-R for digital and CD use, stored in individual CD packaging, i.e., slimline jewel cases

Promotion.  Reviews.  Promotion.  Artist and Record Labels spend much of their time promoting to radio, magazines and blogs.   Many blogs receive piles of plastic CDs packaged in bubble-wrap padded envelopes each week.   In late July, the music blog Idolator decided to figure out how much that pile of CDs and packaging adds up to in terms of CO2.   In their post, “Are Music Writers Slowly Destroying The Planet,” they enlisted the pros over at Reverb to assist in the CO2 calculations and posted the results along with a lengthy chat between Reverb (Green Music Alliance Member) and Idolator about the topic.  The calculations certainly added up:

He calculated the weekly carbon footprint of all the music-biz mail filling my office, and what follows are his estimates as how to how much carbon dioxide (CO2) was released in order for these materials to make it my door:

Paper: 20 lbs (approx.) of CO2
Plastic: 30 lbs (approx.) of CO2
Shipping: 27.7 lbs of CO2

In total, 77.7 lbs of CO2 were released just so I could get my CDs every week. “On an annual basis,” Allenby wrote, “you’re receiving about 4,004 lbs of CO2, or just over two tons. This is equal to about 4,000 miles of driving, or electrifying your home for three months.”

Also, check out the comments on the post….  one of the biggest perceived challenges with digital submissions over CD submissions is getting noticed.   Will reviewers give just as much attention to an emailed link as a shiny CD with beautiful cover art sitting on their desks?

It is great to see a top music blog like Idolator taking a look at this issue.  One thing for certain is that music blogs are already a “greener” alternative to printed magazines…  so that is a start.  And for all the bloggers out there… please at least recycle the jewel cases!  Visit our resources page for recycling options.

Many thanks to Idolator for exposing this green topic.

With an estimated attendance of 10,000+ on the Woodstock 40th Anniversary weekend, the Green Music Fest in Chicago aims to be a blast while also showcasing environmentally friendly products and services.  Taking place on Saturday August 15th and Sunday August 16th in Chicago’s Eckhart Park (1330 W. Chicago Avenue).

Vendors will be exclusively green or eco-friendly, whether selling crafts made with recycled materials or techie gadgets made with green components.

The City of Chicago Department of Environment’s Chicago Center for Green Technology is sponsoring the green section of the event with an estimated 60-plus green vendors.  Tickets are still available, so visit the official site for more details.