No Meat, No Fuel: Massive Attack’s Bristol Concert Breaks Record as Lowest-Carbon Live Music Event

British trip-hop band Massive Attack’s music festival in Bristol last summer produced the lowest emissions of any concert ever, according to a new report.

Nearly seven months after Massive Attack hosted 32,000 people at a music festival it hoped would serve as a playbook for low-carbon live music, a new report suggests it succeeded in doing so.

The concert was named Act 1.5 after the 2015 Paris Agreement, where world leaders pledged to keep post-industrial temperature rises below 1.5°C, and featured an electric-powered stage, 100% plant-based catering, and no car park.

All this helped Massive Attack cut energy emissions by 98% compared to a standard outdoor live music event (lowering on-site electricity emissions by 81% versus a show running on diesel generators), and food emissions by 89%. In fact, in absolute numbers, offering exclusively vegan dishes rendered the largest reduction in emissions (26,800 kg of CO2e).

“This show proved to be the cleanest, greenest festival event ever staged – but in terms of popular take-up of clean practices, it feels like we and others working on this stuff are attempting to create smart productions within dumb regulation,” said Mark Donne, lead producer of the Act 1.5 show.

Carly McLachlan, associate director at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, which published the report, added: “A willingness to do things differently was demonstrated by the audience and crew members alike.”

How Massive Attack cut out carbon

The music festival was Massive Attack’s first home concert in five years, and took place at Clifton Downs in its home city of Bristol. The trip-hop band created the concept based on a separate Tyndall Centre report it commissioned in 2021, adopting a number of measures to make it the most climate-friendly live music event, and lay out a blueprint for other acts to follow.

To reduce transport-related emissions, local residents were prioritised with presale access to tickets, and encouraged to walk, cycle or take public transport. For those travelling, Massive Attack incentivised them to use trains, offering access to a VIP bar and separate toilets.

The band organised free electric shuttles to and from the two main train stations in Bristol, as well as five special trains from rail operator GWR for people to travel back home after the concert. In fact, the gig venue had no car park.

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

Meanwhile, all the food served at Act 1.5 was plant-based, a key focus for the organisers since food and drink represent the second-largest source of emissions at festivals, making up over a third (35%) of the carbon footprint.

The festival also had a food waste prevention plan in place, including the redistribution of surplus food and the composting of food waste. Bars encouraged people to bring their own reusable containers, while all serveware was compostable. And no single-use plastics were allowed on site, either from traders or audience members.

Taking the low-waste strategy further, Massive Attack banned glitter and disposable vapes too, and installed compostable toilets, with some of the event’s waste sent to a firm that extracts phosphorus from urine.

Aviation emissions in focus as plant-based demand surprises promoters

These measures allowed the band to massively attack the event’s emissions, with the electricity supply highlighted as a key lever of success. “Avoiding post-combustion products by not having diesel or HVO generators is likely to have improved on-site air quality,” the report said.

While the full impact of transportation is difficult to calculate since the organisers didn’t have data on how every audience member travelled, a sample survey of 7% of the concertgoers was used to make estimates. Only 5% of people took a flight to or from Bristol for the gig, while about 35% used a car or van, and about a third were locals.

“As is common, air travel is the highest single contributor to the overall emissions impact of the show,” the report revealed. To showcase just how much it impacts an event’s footprint, the 5% of concert visitors who flew in were responsible for 64% of the transportation emissions. Conversely, locals only accounted for 1% of this share.

It’s why the artists travelled to Bristol via coach or ferry (from Paris, Dublin and Glasgow), lowering travel emissions by 73% compared to a standard live music event.

“If fans are encouraged to tour the world to see their favourite artists, this sector can simply forget about hitting any emissions reduction targets, let alone Paris 1.5°C compatibility. There’s a huge question now for tour planning, but also for media and promoter marketing campaigns high on the glitz of epic summer tours that normalise leisure aviation,” said Massive Attack frontman Robert del Naja.

The food situation caused some controversy because demand far outstripped supply, leading to long queues and hour-long wait times for some attendees. The report explained that this was because the local promoters didn’t realise the audience’s greater interest in food over drink (atypical for such festivals), and assumed that vegan options may not appeal, and therefore incorrectly assumed that demand would be low.

Massive Attack apologised for this after the show and the Tyndall Centre pointed to a silver lining here: “This helped to demonstrate that demand for plant-based food could be relied upon and so any initial concerns about making the switch from meat-free to plant-based were unfounded.”

Comparative assessments found that its food emissions were 89% lower than a regular concert where 30% of dishes contain red meat, another 30% feature white meat and only 10% are plant-based.

Governments need to step up to decarbonise live music

Massive Attack had set out to create a playbook for other artists and bands to follow around the world, and the success of the concert is now there for everyone to see.

“This proof-of-concept show could change the landscape for outdoor festivals. It demonstrated that there are real opportunities for promoters, providers, local authorities and central government to create the conditions for the UK to lead the world in super-low carbon events,” said McLachlan.

More and more artists are trying to limit the environmental impact of their shows. Coldplay published a 12-point plan to halve their tour’s carbon footprint and successfully reduced its Music Of The Spheres Tour’s emissions by 59%, a figure it noted had been verified by the MIT Environmental Solutions Initiative. Crucially, however, this did not take into account audience travel, the largest source of emissions for these type of events.

Billie Eilish, who is famously vegan, directed London’s O2 Arena to serve only plant-based food during her 2022 residency, and last year worked with LA Metro to increase subway services to her album launch venue (although fans still would have needed to drive to get to a station). For her ongoing Hit Me Hard and Soft tour, the singer set up Eco Villages as part of a raft of sustainability efforts.

Even Taylor Swift has served plant-based meat at some of her Eras Tour shows. 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.

Donne, Act 1.5’s producer, explained where things can improve. “Music fans showed quite categorically that they are up for taking the train if there are reliable services available and they can get to the station post-show – but those arrangements are unnecessarily bureaucratic, with dysfunctional timings that must be made simpler,” he said.

“High-polluting power sources like diesel that dominate the festival world, creating huge amounts of greenhouse gas and toxic air pollution for those that live near festival sites, or work on them, are cheap and abundant.”

He continued: “Central and local government must address this urgently, either via regulation or a deterrent tax. Clean technology is ready – it just needs to be facilitated; fans want clean shows, that’s very clear. The challenge for promoters and government now is to meet that need.”