Written evidence submitted by The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research and Massive Attack

December 2020.

Authors: Dr Christopher Jones and Prof Carly McLachlan, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Manchester1 Massive Attack

Background Note:

Massive Attack2 are a UK band that has toured internationally for nearly 30 years, including performances at hundreds of music festivals. In Autumn 20193, Massive Attack commissioned researchers from The Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research4 - a partnership of universities bringing together researchers from the social and natural sciences and engineering to develop sustainable responses to climate change - to evaluate the carbon emissions generated by live music events, and to present models to reduce those emissions at a rate consistent with IPCC 1.5 targets5. This report will be published in Spring 2021. An immediate list of activities and changes the sector should prioritise now are suggested in point 26.

Section A: Evidence Presented by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.

1. UK music festivals contribute to a range of environmental impacts, ranging from greenhouse emissions related to energy used on the site and for associated travel, to waste.6

1 The views contained within section A are attributable solely to the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of researchers in the wider Tyndall Centre or University of Manchester.

2 Massive Attack - Wikipedia 3 Can live music clean up its act? | Financial Times (ft.com) 4 Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research | 5 Global Warming of 1.5 ºC — (ipcc.ch) 6 Bottrill, C., Liverman, D., & Boykoff, M. (2010). Carbon soundings: Greenhouse gas emissions of the UK music industry. Environmental Research Letters, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/5/1/014019 2. A principal contributor to these impacts is the location of festivals. In instances where festivals take place away from existing energy, transport and waste infrastructure of sufficient size to service the demand involved, temporary, short term alternatives for provision of these services are required. Where festivals take place in such settings (typically rural areas) this tends to result in the use of diesel generators for electricity, car use for transport and temporary waste management solutions. 3. Supplying electricity via diesel generator results in greenhouse gas emissions of around 900

7 kgCO2e /MWh. The average for electricity supplied by the UK electricity grid is now 233

8 kgCO2e /MWh , around half what they were in 2010. The UK grid is expected to have

9 emissions below 50 kgCO2e /MWh over the next 10 years. As a result there is a widening gulf in the climate change impacts of off-grid festivals relative to grid-connected festivals. Supplying low carbon electricity with high peak load via off-grid micro-grids is very technically challenging. Until off-grid electricity supply options can be shown to be as low carbon as UK grid electricity it is recommended that festivals seek ways to secure a grid connection. 4. Transport to and from festival sites is another source of greenhouse gas emissions from festivals that need to be addressed immediately. In situations where festivals are not located near existing public transport options some form of substitution is required. Our analysis shows that audience travel greenhouse gas emissions are between 5 and 15 times higher for car travel than for public transport. Electric vehicles, although a long term solution, will take time to replace current fossil fuel options and in the meantime active travel and public transport options will be required to meet 2030 interim climate goals.10 Innovative ideas to incentivise car-free travel to festival sites should be trialled and scaled up rapidly. A timetable for phasing out arrivals by internal combustion engine vehicles should be developed. UK festivals are still heavily reliant on car transport for attendance and this needs to addressed with urgency. 5. Aviation is estimated to be a significant contributor to overall emissions from UK live music, with increased internationalisation of the festival sector.11 This relates to both artist and crew travel as well as audience members. International aviation is an increasingly high proportion of the UK’s overall greenhouse gas emissions and a challenge for meeting the

7 Jones et al (2019) https://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.9b06231 8 Defra Emissions Factors 2020 https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/greenhouse-gas-reporting- conversion-factors-2020 9 National Grid (2020) https://www.nationalgrideso.com/future-energy/future-energy-scenarios 10 Rajaeifar et al (2019) https://eprint.ncl.ac.uk/259608 11 UK Music. (2019). Music by Numbers 2019. Retrieved from https://www.ukmusic.org/assets/general/Music_By_Numbers_2019_Report.pdf terms of the Paris Agreement on climate change. Increased passenger air travel puts pressure on remaining carbon budgets for all other sectors for staying well below 2⁰C. A

typical short haul and long haul flight may add 155 kgCO2e and 1,491 kgCO2e per attendee to the overall impact of the festival respectively. This level of impact highlights that increasing air travel for festival attendance is currently a practice out of step with global climate change goals.

Section B: Evidence Presented by Massive Attack.

1. In relation to point one of the Inquiry Terms of Reference (TOR’s), both the economic and cultural contributions made by the UK festival industry are significant. These events have transformed from largely community based, independent arts led occasions into headline, corporate events of enormous global magnitude. This expansion has brought many benefits including a heightening of the status of the UK “cultural offer”, but has also been less beneficial in relation to environmental impact. 2. Addressing point two of the TOR’S, the impact of pandemic cancellations on this sector has been devastating, as we know from our own crew and associated community. The negative impact has been economic of course, but also deeply stressful and distressing in terms of the entire disappearance of a way of life. Too many freelance festival workers right across the skills spectrum have been overlooked and isolated by various governmental support schemes; an oversight that we as a band deeply lament. 3. Looking to point 3 of the TOR’s and “the risks to festivals taking place in 2021 and beyond” – consistent with the nature and core focus of this joint submission, we would seek to address the risks of festivals taking place beyond 2021. 4. It is our view that at present, the live music industry and in particular, the festival industry has made and is making totally inadequate provision for the type of fast carbon emissions reductions now incumbent on all sectors, and indeed the state itself12. 5. With the welcome news of imminent mass vaccination and good progress in relation to mass testing, it is a reasonable proposition that the festival sector could begin to recover from the COVID19 pandemic with moderate reassembly from 2021 - with 2022 marking a return to full activity. 6. On this basis then, it is perfectly logical to contest that a greater, far more existential and longer-term threat to the continuation of large-scale festivals as presently modelled

12 Ten Point Plan is landmark moment for UK’s Net Zero transition - Climate Change Committee (theccc.org.uk) emerges from the sector’s failure to take systemic, significant and urgent action to reduce emissions. We would fully expect emissions performance to feature far more prominently and significantly in regulatory terms – specifically in relation to event licensing by City or Local Authorities (particularly those that have declared “Climate Emergencies” and are now developing and delivering climate action plans). Thus, given the scale of their carbon emissions, there is a substantial and imminent risk –that specific events will not be being granted licenses to operate at all. 7. Overwhelmingly, large scale festivals in the UK are planned on audience travel by car, mobile power via high polluting, unsustainable fuel sources, generally poor (but improving) waste management policies, tourism focused ticket packages prioritising aviation as mode of transport, and terribly planned identikit international tour cycles, again placing logistical primacy for artists, crews and freight onto aviation. 8. In relation to both the IPCC 1.5 report recommendations and the UK’s own domestic net- zero plans, the current, popular model of large-scale festivals is unsustainable and in urgent need of redesign; particularly in the short term (5 years) until high-capacity battery technologies can be produced to store and utilise renewable energy, and festival owners and promoters can address audience transportation re-design predicated on mass electrified options. 9. In line with the national Parliament, respective local authority councils with licensing responsibility for all of the major UK festivals1314151617 have now declared a “Climate Emergency” and made binding commitments to localised Zero Carbon Plans and Clean Air Zones. There can be no question that large scale festivals in their present form would run counter to these commitments, and would by extension present sub-standard Event Management Plans: very likely resulting in the rejection of an event license. 10. In reference to point 6 of the TOR’s and the question of the structure and evolution of the UK festivals market and the ramifications of this evolution, it is important to consider the environmental and localised cultural/economic impacts of continued festival upscaling. 11. The last decade has seen both a major proliferation of the amount of medium to large scale festivals being staged, and a sustained upscaling of many of the activities associated with

13 Climate Emergency - Mendip District Council 14 Climate change (leeds.gov.uk) 15 Reading's first Climate Emergency strategy approved: here is what is planned | Reading Chronicle 16 'Climate emergency' declared in Leicestershire - Leicestershire Live (leicestermercury.co.uk) 17 Climate emergency declared for Liverpool City Region | Liverpool City Region Combined Authority - News (liverpoolcityregion-ca.gov.uk) these events; funfairs, additional arena tents, additional stages, larger artist bills and more and more international acts. 12. In environmental terms, this obviously means a far greater generation of carbon emissions (especially in relation to high polluting/unsustainable fuel sources and audience car transportation, and a higher aviation footprint from internationally touring artists), but it also creates events that - in terms of their environmental impact and detachment from local supply chains and artistic offer – can be increasingly impervious to the localities that host them. 13. The expansion of this monolithic model of upscale expansion runs in contrast to the evolution of smaller boutique festivals, that commonly hold far greater connections to their localities; both in terms of food, drink and services provision, and indeed the sourcing of local technicians and artists; a sector that has been decimated by the COVID 19 pandemic. 14. In anticipating further charges, as the festival sector approaches reassembly it would do well to seriously consider a transitory re-vernacularisation of these events, placing them closer to local communities in every sense. In almost all other leisure and hospitality market areas, the “shop local/buy local/locally sourced” approach is widespread and popular. 15. The temporary transference of festivals into areas already well served by mass electrified transport, with access to the national power grid would not only dramatically reduce the two key areas of carbon emissions generation for the festival sector, it would also allow localised food, drink and service supply chains, and technical and artistic identities access to significant markets and audiences; enriching local creative economies and greatly benefiting the environment. 16. Finally, we would seek to address point 7 of the Inquiry TOR’s; it is this point in itself that galvanised us to submit evidence to this process at all. 17. It is extremely unusual for parliament to turn its attention to the UK festival industry. A perfunctory search of Hansard shows no written statements or answers, and no committee activity relating to this sector in the last decade. (The last time the industry was even discussed appears to be during a 2011 adjournment debate on “Music & the Economy18”). 18. This committee, understandably, has decided to do so in the context of a global pandemic; yet the wider context of a Climate Emergency – an issue that will not go away at anything like the speed COVID19 hopefully will – is relegated to a line in item 7 of the TOR’s, in a sentence it shares (quite extraordinarily) with “the dangers of illegal drug use”.

18 Music and the Economy - Tuesday 22 November 2011 - Hansard - UK Parliament 19. When setting out to discuss the future of any industry in 2020 - at a time when every sector, every industry and the state itself (the UK government is routinely using the #BuildBackBetter tag in its digital communications) is rightly preoccupied with fast emissions reductions and a target of net zero emissions by 2050 - it is almost inconceivable that “environmental impact” could appear almost as an afterthought; added into a line alongside a totally unrelated issue. 20. We believe this lack of political prioritisation signals very poor leadership to a sector that, on the issue of carbon emissions and environmental impact, has not yet demonstrated the kind of systemic and urgent change in approach that is needed – in this context it is important that government makes clear that the sector must make significant and immediate changes and have a clear plan and pathway to reduce emissions to near zero. On the eve of the historic COP 26 summit in Glasgow, it is almost implausible that any other industry or sector – especially less popular, fun, glamourous or appealing industries – would be treated in this way. 21. The festival sector in the UK, as with most other European countries, is dominated by a corporate duopoly of promoters. It is our view, that these promoters have not moved anything like quickly enough to address the environmental impacts of an extremely lucrative industry. Whilst there are some encouraging signs of change that we have seen during our process of exploration with Tyndall Centre analysts, the industry is still for the most part in denial as to the extent of its carbon emissions. We should be clear; the festival sector is a high polluting sector moving unacceptably slowly in relation to the climate reality. Regardless of its popularity and the fun and escapism it offers – this issue must now be addressed. 22. In addition to the apparent intransigence implied by its inaction in re-designing festival experiences to allow meaningful carbon emissions reductions, this sector (and the UK music industry overall) is also blighted by the appropriation of most efforts to challenge this problem, and replete with the type of “greenwashing19” that also impairs progress in many other sectors. 23. There are a number of NGO’s and Charities that have been established to work on environmental and climate change impacts, either in the arts generally or in music specifically. Despite the best intentions, will and ambition of these groups, progress achieved in actually reducing emissions across the piece is inadequate given the scale of the challenge. An empirical assessment of these activities – despite good staffing numbers and

19 What is greenwashing? | Ethical Consumer the annual generation of hundreds of thousands of pounds in donations and grants – shows initiatives locked in a cycle of endless monitoring, pledging, seminars, and the handing out of “green” awards; while high polluting festival models and their carbon emissions remain at stubbornly high, largely unchanging levels. 24. Too often, these otherwise noble and well-intentioned charities and NGO’s are supported by, and in some cases are even part-governed by senior representatives of those same high polluting identities who produce so many of the large-scale festivals in question. This of course poses a logical question: is the support and involvement of high-polluting identities with the very charities and NGO’s charged with assisting them in achieving meaningful emissions reductions actually impeding, rather than aiding that progress? This committee may wish to consider the recommendation of an independent body to assist and support faster, more transparent emissions reductions across the festival sector. 25. The popularity, enjoyment and fun appeal of the festival sector does not make its carbon emissions any less toxic. The sector simply has to act faster and go further in relation to its carbon emissions and environmental responsibilities. The lion’s share of these efforts must be based on reducing emissions rather than secondary emissions reductions measures such as tree planting for every customer ticket purchase, or relationships with largely unreliable carbon offset schemes – both of these measures have been openly called into question by bodies such as the UN20 and NASA21 and increasing scrutiny from mainstream journalism22.

26. We appeal to the UK festival industry to turn its full attention to primary emissions reductions measures: audience travel primarily via mass-electrified transport, power sourced via the national grid or via renewable energy suppliers, zero to landfill waste management, smart-hubbing of production equipment, the promotion of smart touring models to take the emphasis away from artist travel via aviation, the removal of aviation based overseas tourist/show ticket packages, more localised location design and localised food, drink and service supply chains, and the gradual reduction of meat options in the arena catering offer. 27. Massive Attack commit to the open, free, industry wide sharing of the research and mitigation/solution models presented to us under commission by the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, and in the open transference of our subsequent super-low carbon

20 Carbon offsets are not our get-out-of-jail free card (unenvironment.org) 21 Examining the Viability of Planting Trees to Help Mitigate Climate Change – Climate Change: Vital Signs of the Planet (nasa.gov) 22 Carbon offset gold rush is distracting us from climate change | Financial Times (ft.com) production model to be realised in our “ACT_1.5” exemplar shows in Liverpool23 in the summer of 2021.

23 Massive Attack announce Liverpool "super-low carbon" show (nme.com)