The band that doesn’t want you to drive to their concerts

Massive Attack have been campaigning on environmental issues for years – and are now fixing their gaze on the music industry itself with a groundbreaking Bristol show next month.

The show – an all-day festival called Act 1.5 on Clifton Down, a large public park in the west of Bristol, on 25 August – will also feature performances from Irish folk band Lankum and US rapper Killer Mike, among other acts. “The show production is pioneering in all aspects of decarbonisation and will create a blueprint for the way live shows can be produced,” Massive Attack’s Robert Del Naja, also known as 3D, tells the BBC. “The scale of innovations and emissions reductions will speak for themselves.”

Many of the measures laid out in that report are being put into action at Act 1.5. The entire festival will be powered by renewable energy and battery sources, including the use of electric trucks to install the infrastructure. Every food outlet will serve plant-based food procured using local supply chains, and waste is being minimised with the use of compostable plates and cutlery and the redistribution of surplus food.

“It’s wonderful to be part of such a significant and innovative low carbon event,” says the Tyndall Centre’s Professor Carly McLachlan, one of the report’s authors. “Massive Attack and Act 1.5 have built a community of organisations here – new collaborations, doing things differently, experimenting and learning across power, waste and travel.”

But the carbon footprint of a performer, and even of their whole touring operation, is just one side of the story. Big tours see thousands of fans travelling to each show, often by car, and sometimes even flying domestically or internationally to be there. It all adds up to make audience travel the biggest single contributor to live music carbon emissions – around 41% of the total footprint, according to a 2023 study by sustainability non-profit A Greener Future.

To deter long-distance travel, the band offered an initial presale of tickets for local postal codes only (for Bristol, Bath and the surrounding Gloucestershire, Swindon and Taunton areas). Another obvious solution was to encourage audiences to travel by public transport, and to that end, Massive Attack have teamed up for Act 1.5 with UK booking platform Train Hugger, which contributes a quarter of its revenue to restoring the British countryside.

“We’re the UK’s first train-ticketing platform where every time someone books a ticket, we plant a tree,” says co-founder Felix Tanzer. “We’re planning on planting 20,000 oak trees for this show alone.” The trees will be planted in James Wood near Taunton, 40 miles from Bristol.

Planting trees has huge, tangible benefits for the environment, helping to create habitats for plants and animals and absorbing huge amounts of carbon dioxide. For Tanzer, though, capturing the public imagination is just as important as capturing carbon. 

“Ultimately, people find carbon-capture stuff boring,” he says. “The average amount of carbon sequestered in a tree is a tonne, but no one knows what a tonne of carbon looks like. Everyone knows what a forest looks like, though – and here in the UK we have the most degraded forests in Europe.”

“It’s about putting the infrastructure in place, but it’s also about providing the motivation,” he continues. “If you say to people, ‘This is going to be a terrible experience, but it will save the planet’, people won’t want to do it.”

Similarly, Massive Attack recognised the need to incentivise people to travel by train to their Clifton Downs gig. So, they’re giving train travellers special privileges: access to a VIP bar with separate toilets, extra pre-sale tickets and free transfers to and from the train station via electric bus. They are also working with the local train network, Great Western Railway, to lay on five extra trains for travelling fans.

The music industry can take inspiration from an unlikely source when it comes to progressive, eco-friendly travel measures: the world of football. There is a long history in the UK of football clubs chartering extra trains and buses for away fans and subsidising fares, but it is not standard practice in the music industry.

“Football clubs are way ahead of music festivals on this,” Tanzer says. “Football’s been doing it for decades.”

Crucially, Act 1.5 will see the installation of renewable-energy infrastructure – a power substation and feeder pillars – that can be used in future shows. “Along with the planting of 20,000 carbon-resilient trees, this infrastructure will be the legacy of this show,” says Tanzer. “Things like having permanent renewable electricity feeds in the area, rather than the traditional approach to a festival, which is to turn up with loads of generators and burn tonnes of diesel in a field.”

For Massive Attack fans, the show might prove memorable for reasons beyond its pioneering environmental impact. “[This] may be the last time we play Bristol, so we’ve put a lot of attention into making sure the experience is as rich as possible,” says Del Naja. “It’s a special moment for multiple reasons.”

Of course, in order for lasting change to take hold, it will take more than one-off events, and will require a change in approach from artists and venues industry-wide. There has been some progress in this regard, according to Li-Ya Mar of Planet Reimagined, an environmental organisation whose Amplify project is geared towards building a fan-based climate movement in the music industry. “Billie Eilish has been vocal and leading by example, mandating plant-based food options in [tour] venues and hosting local environmental groups at her shows to raise awareness of the climate crisis and promote action,” she says.

Popular artists have a huge platform and wield significant influence over their audience, meaning they have a role to play in changing the attitudes of the public. “What we found through our research with Ticketmaster, LiveNation and iHeart Radio is that the majority of fans support artists speaking up about climate change,” Mar says, “and many would be likely to take climate action, such as signing a climate-related petition and voting based on climate issues, when their favourite artists invite them to join the efforts.” 

She points to indie-pop band AJR, who are encouraging fans at every stop in their summer tour to engage with local authorities on climate issues, from electrifying school buses to expanding bike lanes. “As Adam Met from AJR said, all musicians can use their platforms to support meaningful climate action: ‘The era of ‘shut up and sing’ is over.'”