Matoma Launches First Carbon Positive Music Tour To Fight Climate Change

Internationally renowned DJ and record producer Matoma has just announced that his upcoming United States tour will be climate positive. Partnering up with carbon offsetting platform CHOOOSE, Matoma will be the first artist ever to reduce the unavoidable greenhouse gas emissions related to touring using carbon drawdown. 

Norwegian DJ and record producer Tom Lagergren, professionally known as Matoma, will become the first artist in the world to reduce the emissions from his tour using carbon drawdown. Collaborating with the United Nations-backed climate action streaming service CHOOOSE, Matoma will be making his upcoming United States tour climate positive by using carbon drawdown, a method of removing carbon from the atmosphere through capture and storage projects. This goes further than carbon neutrality, as it helps to actively reverse the effects of global heating and climate change by removing more emissions than one generates. The emissions from his tour will reduce twice as much as the initial footprint. 

This marks a step up from Matoma’s tour in 2018, which was the world’s first climate neutral music tour, also launched in partnership with CHOOOSE. The tour earned the United Nations certification as an official signatory of the “Climate Neutral Now” program. 

“The goal and process remains the same – to calculate the footprint of our tour activities, to explore every possible way to minimise that footprint, and then pay back the planet for the unavoidable footprint that remains…We asked ‘what more can we do differently this year?’ [and] we’re thrilled to be actually removing the remaining carbon,” said Matoma.

In addition to sponsoring global carbon drawdown projects, Matoma’s upcoming tour will be implementing measures dubbed their “Green Touring Checklist” to reduce carbon emissions on a local scale. Some of the key initiatives to reduce their footprint on Matoma’s touring checklist is encouraging the crew to eat plant-based meals, using public transport, ensuring recyclables and booking to stay at sustainable hotels. 

“Matoma is using his platform to achieve meaningful change and lead the way in the music industry is a great example of how combining culture and climate action makes a difference,” commented founder and CEO of CHOOOSE Andreas Slettvoll.

This isn’t the first time that a high-profile name in the music industry has taken steps to raise awareness on environmental issues and fight climate change. In August last year, iconic guitarist and songwriter David Gilmour of Pink Floyd auctioned off 126 of his guitars for a whopping US$ 21 million and donated the entire sum to the environmental charity ClientEarth.

Lead image courtesy of Matoma.