Jack Johnson forces venues to go green before he will play there
When musicians play venues, they often present what are known as "riders" to the organization, requiring a list of demands to be met before the artist will perform. These can range from the ridiculous, like allegedly asking for hand-carved balls of ice or imported Versace towels, to the other end of the spectrum.
In Jack Johnson's case, his riders require venues to clean up their act. “RECYCLING MUST NOT BE THROWN AWAY WITH THE TRASH,” reads one rider agreement. He continues to demand all light bulbs at the venue be switched to energy-efficient versions.
“You hear all these horror stories of people’s riders requesting one color of M&Ms or super fancy champagne,” he told The Huffington Post. “We just figured, all right, let’s be demanding with these, because we know they’re not going to switch back to those energy-draining bulbs once the show is over.”
Pollstar, a concert industry trade magazine, cited the top 100 tours in 2015 had sold an estimated 60 million plastic water bottles and 130 million paper goods. This equates to equivalent of 48,000 barrels of oil and about 160,000 trees.
Johnson almost quit touring, knowing the environmental impact his shows were having. He was making enough off of record sales to continue living and was forced to reckon with it. In 2008, he and his wife began enforcing riders that demanded reusable beer pints, water refill stations and energy-saving equipment. Many of the venues have made the change and haven't looked back.
He explained, “the thing we keep hearing from venues, which we think is cool, is that they realize [the changes they made] were more cost-effective. Or, they just realize they had great feedback from the patrons and they get so much good press that they start doing everything they can [to green up the venue].”
Keep it up, Jack.