Massive Attack: 90s Trip Hop Band Rewrites the Playbook for Climate-Friendly Concerts

British trip hop pioneer Massive Attack held a festival that rewrote the rules of eco-friendly concerts, and is calling on the live music industry to adopt its low-carbon playbook.

On Sunday, Massive Attack hosted 35,000 people at a daylong music festival at Clifton Downs in its home city of Bristol, also featuring American rapper Killer Mike, Irish folk group Lankum, and English actor and musician Samantha Morton.

While it may have been the trip hop band’s first home concert in five years, it was also a first-of-a-kind gig on a global scale. Described by the band as the lowest-carbon concert of its scale in history, it featured exclusively vegan food, an electric-powered stage, and no car park.

Aptly named Act 1.5 – after the 2015 Paris Agreement, where world leaders committed to climate action that would keep post-industrial temperature rises below 1.5°C – the gig was seven years in the making.

It came three years after the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research published a report laying out a blueprint for climate-friendly concerts, which was commissioned by Massive Attack. With help from non-profit A Greener Future (AGF) – which aims to lower music industry emissions – the festival acted as practical proof that such measures could be taken.

While many artists are trying to figure out ways to curb their live shows’ emissions, few are actually meaningful, according to Massive Attack frontman Robert Del Naja. “If what you’re doing’s not 1.5 compatible, it’s irrelevant,” he told the New York Times. “It’s simply a gesture, an idea. It’s not doing anything.”

Transport and energy emissions major targets for Massive Attack

Act 1.5 aimed to address key areas of greenhouse gas emissions, from transport and energy to food and waste. According to AGF, audience travel accounts for 41% of an event’s emissions, by far the largest source of this sector’s carbon footprint. When you factor in artists, their teams, and traders, this jumps to 57%.

This is why a host of measures squarely focused on mobility. To reduce transport-related emissions, local residents were prioritised with presale access to tickets, and for those travelling, Massive Attack incentivised them to use trains, offering access to a VIP bar and separate toilets.

Within Bristol, the band strongly encouraged attendees to walk, cycle or take public transport. It even organised free electric shuttles to and from the two main train stations, as well as five special trains from rail operator GWR for people to travel back home after the concert – since Sunday was a bank holiday, late-night trains were suspended. And doubling down on the transportation focus, the venue intentionally had no car park.

The band also reduced the number of trucks it uses to carry equipment to the venue and between the festival stages, going from six to two – and these were electric trucks. The entire site was powered by renewable energy through Ecotricity’s electric batteries.

“At blueprint level, it was: how do we design an exciting show that doesn’t take 25 trucks to move from place to place?” Del Naja told the Guardian. “Now our haulage is down to two trucks, and I feel the show is more confrontational, provocative and visually dynamic. It hasn’t lost anything – it’s gained more.”

The Safe From Harm singer added: “I’d like to think that next year all the big stages at all the big festivals will be powered by batteries, because that’s the look.”

Vegan food, compostable cutlery, and even upcycled urine

All food at the venue – whether it was for concertgoers or backstage – was vegan. AGF says food and drink represent the second-largest source of emissions at festivals, making up over a third (35%) of the carbon footprint.

This is why Massive Attack brought in fully vegan vendors like Chiki Monkey and Soy Ahoy. And while other vendors – such as Dead Wingers, Tasty Ragga, Bocca di Bianchi, Castaway Kitchen, and Hippy Chippy – don’t usually serve 100% meatless food, they also only dished up plant-based food at Act 1.5. Think fries loaded with courgette ragù and vegan Philly cheesesteaks. That said, some of the vendors were using gas canisters to power their grills, instead of green energy.

The festival also had a food waste prevention plan in place, including the redistribution of surplus food and the composting of food waste. Bars encourage people to bring their own reusable containers, while all serveware was compostable.

Massive Attack also banned glitter and disposable vapes to reduce waste, and implemented a strategy to ensure no waste from Act 1.5 would go to waste. Even the toilets were compostable, with some of the event’s waste sent to a firm that extracts phosphorus from urine.

Moreover, the band pledged to create a “permanent climate-resilient woodland” of 19,150 oak trees on land 45 miles away from Bristol. The area spans 85 acres of former farmland and unmanaged woodland.

Most of the festival went as planned, but one big gripe came with the waiting times for food. Concertgoers ended up in long queues, with some having to wait up to an hour for their orders.

In response, Act 1.5 apologised in a statement after the event, acknowledging that “there should have been more traders on the day”.

Could Act 1.5 usher in a new era for live music?

The Tyndall Centre will publish a report this autumn to detail the event’s climate impact, with Massive Attack using the findings to further greenify future concerts.

The original report that formed the basis of Act 1.5 had a range of recommendations for musicians, promoters, venues, manufacturers, and local authorities. These included generating and using renewable energy on-site (via solar panels, for example), eliminating private jets and limiting air travel, offering fans incentives to use public transport, providing charging points for electric vehicles, and designing shows that reduce set and equipment demand.

Other major artists have been trying to limit the climate impact of their shows too. Coldplay famously announced a 12-point plan to halve their tour’s carbon footprint, which involved using kinetic energy to generate electricity when fans jump on the dancefloor, using palm-oil-free biofuels for transportation, and providing fans with plant-based, compostable LED wristbands.

The British rock band said these measures ended up reducing its Music Of The Spheres Tour’s emissions by 59%, a figure it noted had been verified by the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative – but crucially, this did not take into account audience travel, the largest source of emissions for these events.

Similarly, Billie Eilish, who is famously vegan, directed London’s O2 Arena to serve only plant-based food during her 2022 residency, and recently worked with LA Metro to increase subway services to her album launch venue – but fans still would have needed to drive to get to a station. The singer is setting up Eco Villages as part of a raft of sustainability efforts for her upcoming Hit Me Hard Hit Me Soft tour, which starts next month.

Even Taylor Swift has served plant-based meat at some of her Eras Tour shows. But while it’s a welcome measure, it does very little to move the needle – especially when you consider her emissions from the record-breaking world tour.

Del Naja expressed discontent at the fact that no artist has really paid attention to the Tyndall Centre report. “It’s been five years and no one’s shown much interest. A couple of bands, a couple of promoters, but very little interest,” he told the BBC. “In fact, most other promoters say: ‘We’ve got our own report,’ which is slightly ridiculous because those reports are written by their own team. So that’s been really quite frustrating.”

He called for promoters – who “hold the power in this sector” – to stop waiting for governments to update their policies, and take action in their own hands. “They have the ability to make the change; the finances. What’s frustrating is knowing that people are sitting there on their hands, waiting for legislation to happen,” the rapper told the Guardian.

While exact estimates of the live music sector’s emissions vary, the wider music industry has pledged to reach net-zero emissions by 2050, with the Big Three labels of Sony, Universal and Warner joining forces with independents to sign the Music Climate Pact in 2021.