Since 2003, Pearl Jam has calculated their tour-related carbon emissions based on band and crew air travel, hotel stays, truck and freight travel, power at venues and fan transportation to and from the shows. The band then invests a portion of their tour profits in local environmental projects in order to offset and mitigate their tour-related carbon dioxide emissions.
In 2015, Pearl Jam mitigated the CO2 produced during their 2015 Latin American and U.S. tour dates with a $54,000 USD investment in two certified REDD+ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation ‘plus’) projects in partnership with: Conservation International’s Alto Mayo Project in Peru, and the CarbonFund.org Foundation’s Valparaiso Amazon Rainforest Project in Brazil.
For their US and European tour in 2018 Pearl Jam offset approximately 3,500 tons of carbon dioxide through a project in Alaska supporting conservation work on Afognak Island which is home to a coastal temperate rainforest with old-growth trees that are between 180 and 250 years old, plus a regrowth of new trees from the past 30 years.
“As a band, it’s important for us to recognize the environmental impact of our tours and do what we can to mitigate that,” said Pearl Jam’s Stone Gossard.
In the same year he band voluntarily mitigated an estimated 2,500* tons of carbon dioxide emissions produced from their Brazilian tour dates in partnership with Conservation International. The band purchased a ‘carbon offset’ supporting Amazonia Live, the world’s largest topical reforestation proect which aims to restore 73 amillion trees in the Brazilian Amazon.
ecolibirum aided Joss Stone on a similar challenge to balance her emissions on her 2019 tour. Unavoidable emissions were balanced with donations towards wind power generation and reforestation in the state of Tamil Nadu, India for the first half of her tour and the second half was balanced through the Trees+ programme – planting nearly 2,000 trees in the UK and protecting 125 acres of threatened rainforest in Laos.
ecolibrium have created a Guide for Sustainable Transport & Travel for events (link to it on our site) and our Guide to Sustainable Touring for Artists is coming soon email hello@ecolibium.earth to register your interest in receiving the guide when it’s published in Autumn 2021.
pearl jam tackle travel emissions
Sources: https://pearljam.com/news/pearl-jam-offsets-2018-us-and-european-tour-carbon-emissions-1539729271
Image credit: Pearl Jam at Madison Square Garden, 20th May 2010 by Lugnuts (talk) This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
