Coldplay Goes Climate Positive For 2022 Music Of The Spheres World Tour

Coldplay has announced the dates of their upcoming Music Of The Spheres 2022 global tour—and made a commitment that it’ll be as sustainable and low-carbon as possible. Not only will all the shows be powered by 100% clean energy, Coldplay has also pledged to make the tour climate positive, drawing down more carbon than it produces. 

British rock band Coldplay is going climate positive on their upcoming global tour in 2022. Releasing their concert dates for the new album, Music Of The Spheres, the band also shared more details about their commitment to sustainability. It comes two years after Coldplay made its first environmental pledge, when they said in 2019 that all future tours would strive to be as “beneficial as possible” to the planet. 

Net-zero clean energy tour 

Kicking off in Costa Rica in March next year, before playing across the world including in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, the US, Germany, Poland, France, Belgium, and the UK, Coldplay has committed that every single show will be powered by 100% renewable energy. Every stadium or venue will have installed solar panels, for instance, as well as kinetic floors and bikes for fans to generate power. 

This energy will be stored in what will become the first-ever mobile rechargeable show battery, developed in partnership with carmaker BMW. The battery itself also comes from recycled sources—specifically the old batteries taken from old BMW i3 electric cars. All of this will help cut the band’s direct emissions from the tour by more than 50% compared to its most recent tour in 2016/17. 

Fans going to the tour will be encouraged to lower their individual carbon footprint too, with rewards for those who travel to and from Coldplay concerts using low-emissions routes. Using the official tour app, showgoers will receive discounts at venues if they choose carbon-friendly transportation, such as bikes or trains rather than planes. 

At the venue, fans will be able to purchase merchandise that has been sustainably and ethically sourced. There will be no charge for drinking water, in order to eliminate unnecessary single-use plastic bottle waste—fans can simply bring their own cups and bottles to refill. 

As for Coldplay and its crew’s own emissions, the band will mostly fly commercial and pay a surcharge to use Sustainable Aviation Fuel, and use EVs for ground transportation whenever possible. They will also eat mainly locally sourced plant-based foods, avoiding high-carbon foods such as meat and dairy. 

Going carbon positive

Aside from reducing emissions by using renewable energy and encouraging eco-friendly habits among fans and its own crew, Coldplay says it’ll make the tour carbon positive by drawing down more emissions through a range of tech and nature-based solutions. 

One tree will be planted for every single ticket sold, for instance. The band will also put forward 10% of the proceeds into a fund to support other environmental causes, including ClientEarth and The Ocean Cleanup. Sea Shepherd, Sustainable Food Trust, and Climeworks are on the list of supported charities as well. 

To make sure that its impact can be properly tracked and monitored, Coldplay is going to collaborate with researchers and climate experts at Imperial College London’s Grantham Institute of Climate Change and the Environment. Scientists will work on quantifying the impact of Coldplay’s entire 2022 world tour and how it will affect the planet, “both positively and negatively”.

“We’ve been planning this tour for years, and we’re super excited to play songs from across our whole time together,” shared Coldplay. “At the same time, we’re very conscious that the planet is facing a climate crisis. So we’ve spent the last two years consulting with environmental experts to make this tour as sustainable as possible, and, just as importantly, to harness the tour’s potential to push things forward.”

The rock band went on to admit that they “won’t get everything right” but they are fully dedicated to “doing everything we can” and that “it’s a work in progress.” 

Musical climate action

As awareness about the climate emergency grows, more musicians and artists have taken to incorporating action into their work and using their platforms for the benefit of the planet. 

Iconic American rock band Pearl Jam recently enlisted famed teenage activist Greta Thunberg to spread the word about the severity of climate change in their music video for Retrograde. Norwegian DJ Tom Lagergren, better known as Matoma, used a number of carbon drawdown measures to offset the emissions from his tour in 2020.

Meanwhile, Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour has used his voice to spread climate awareness by launching a campaign to raise money for ClientEarth. In 2019, he auctioned off over 120 of his guitars for $21 million and donated every dollar to the charity. 

Lead image courtesy of Coldplay.