Something I’m Learning
I don’t know anything about Billie Eilish. I haven’t gone out of my way to avoid her music, and I know she is a one of the biggest artists in the world, but I’ve never listened to a single song. However, I now think of her with another label – social entrepreneur. Consider this, from an interview Eilish and her mother (who may be her co-founder to use entrepreneurship lingo) did for Billboard:
Eilish helped launch and fund REVERB’s Music Decarbonization Project, which aims to ultimately eliminate carbon emissions created by the music industry. As part of the initiative, she partially powered her headlining set at Chicago’s Lollapalooza last summer with zero-emissions battery systems that were charged on a temporary “solar farm” set up on site.
In 2022, she worked with Nike to redesign the brand’s iconic Air Force 1 shoes to be vegan using vegan nubuck leather made with 80% recycled materials and 100% recycled polyester.
In October 2023, she starred in a Gucci campaign that featured its classic 1955 Horsebit bag in Demetra, a vegan alternative to leather made from 75% plant-derived raw materials — a first for the brand.
[She persuaded London’s] O2 Arena to go fully plant-based for six shows [in 2022].
Her 2022 Happier Than Ever tour saved 8.8 million gallons of water by serving plant-based meals for the artists and crew [throughout the tour].
Lollapalooza. Nike. Gucci. The O2 Arena. Not a bad set of places to influence towards sustainability.
Such influencing is critical to one’s impact as a social entrepreneur. Once you start paying more than occasional attention to climate change, you soon learn that the concept of the individual’s ‘carbon footprint’ was a hugely successful con propagated by the oil company British Petroleum to distract us from who really has the power to make a difference. Reading the Billboard interview makes it clear that Eilish and her mother both know the importance of thinking systemically about this:
“And the problem is, us people living in the world with no power — “us” in terms of anybody — we’re all like, “Oh, don’t use plastic straws. We’re going to use horrible, soggy paper straws to save all the turtles. And we’re going to get electric cars. And we’re going to not use blow dryers,” or whatever it is to save the planet. And then these giant companies are not doing anything when they have so much more power. We’ve had a lot of conversations and people are trying, but even when they’re trying, they’re like, “Oh, yeah. We’re going to have that in 2026.” And you’re like, “Well, that’s not fast enough.””
I’ve never listened to a Billie Eilish song, but now I want to. I’m definitely paying attention to her as a leader now.
I was also struck by how Eilish’s initial efforts ran into a brick wall, until someone nudged her to talk to Coldplay’s Chris Martin about it. Martin pointed her to the nonprofits working alongside the music industry on decarbonization, which helped all the efforts described above to take off.
I wasn’t surprised to read that because, unlike with Billie Eilish, I have long been a Coldplay fan. A couple of years ago, I bought tickets to a Coldplay concert. I received an email on the morning of the concert that outlined the sustainability initiatives the band were taking, with a link to their sustainability website, which is impressively put together and detailed.
At the venue, while waiting for the concert to start, all the giant screens ran videos showcasing NGOs around the world working on conservation and climate change . The videos ran on loop for more than an hour. Finally, just before Coldplay started, after getting us all revved up for the show, they stopped everything to play a 2-min video on how our tickets were contributing to fighting climate change. It was an impressive demonstration of how serious they are about this. Watch the video below:
And then they put on the best concert I’d ever seen! (On a related note, if you ever have a chance to see Coldplay live, do it!)
One year after the concert, I received another email from Coldplay, this time with an update on the impact of the emissions-reduction efforts from their whole Music of the Spheres tour. Independently verified by MIT, this too is well worth a read.
Something to Consider
As a fine example of thinking like a systems entrepreneur and leader, that Billboard interview really is worth your time. Why Billie Eilish Insists On Sustainability In Her Career: ‘It’s A Never-Ending F–King Fight’
Something to Quote
Artists can cast a giant shadow of influence. If you’re not perfect, but you are influencing many, many, many people to do better, it’s multiplied hundreds of times.
- Maggie Baird (Eilish’s mother, in the interview)
This is super helpful Roshan. I'm always looking for good and unexpected examples of voices for change, and this is def one of them! Also interesting to see the effort Coldplay makes in their communications. A climate report as a band is impressive. I'm really curious if someone who understands climate and who understands this industry could provide some criticism towards these initiatives - not because I want them to be criticized, but what are the potential massive things that are left out here? It's nice to go plant based on the riders, but if you are still flying for global tours, how does that balance each other out? Just curious to get a full picture.
Nice piece Roshan!