Explained: Can Concerts Like Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour Be Climate’s Endgame?

The environmental impact of Taylor Swift's The Eras Tour is drastic.

(Photo Courtesy: Pinterest/Altered by The Quint)

Taylor Swift's concert movie, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, had its grand world premiere on 13 October. The ongoing tour, which the singer describes as a journey through all of her musical 'eras', is reportedly the potential highest-grossing musical tour of all time.

While the extraordinary success of The Eras Tour did make headlines for its staggering economic impact, it also piqued the interest of some political leaders who eagerly expressed their desire to host it.

But in the midst of all this fanfare, we swiftly left a 'blank space' for the most important discussion around the tour – its drastic environmental impact. So, let's talk about it.

All You Need to Know About Taylor's The Eras Tour

Taylor Swift during her live performance at The Eras Tour.

(Photo Courtesy: Twitter/X)

The Eras Tour is Taylor's sixth headlining tour which kicked off on 17 March and will conclude towards the end of November 2024. As per reports, with 146 shows across five continents, each of the singer's performances features a setlist of 44 songs that spans over three hours.

As per a TIME report, The Eras Tour is likely to surpass the $1 billion mark by March 2024 itself, breaking Elton John's 2022 tour record. Taylor's The Eras Tour has also been turned into a movie – and Indian fans will be able to witness the film on the big screens on 3 November.

But How is the Tour Harming the Environment?

Stadium concerts aren't an easy feat. From transport to logistics, everything comes at a cost. According to a report by the UK-based NGO Julie's Bicycle, music-related tours account for 85,000 metric tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions annually in the country.

So far, over one million people have reportedly attended Taylor's The Eras Tour across the globe. Needless to say, such a huge scale of the event can have a drastic impact on the already deteriorating state of our climate.

Over 70,000 people (the highest till date) attended Taylor Swift's concert at Nashville's Nissan Stadium on 5 May.

(Photo Courtesy: Instagram)

For Starters, The Eras Tour Caused an Actual Seismic Activity: Adding to the tour's record-breaking list is a seismic activity equivalent to a 2.3-magnitude earthquake that was reportedly caused by the singer's enormous Seattle concert in July, according to CNN.

• Termed as the 'Swift-Quake', several experts compared it to the 2011 'Beast Quake,' when Seattle Seahawks fans erupted after an impressive touchdown by Marshawn 'Beast Mode' Lynch.

• While the seismic activity had minimal consequences, the vast amount of energy generated at the concert could have long-term effects on the climate.

• Experts told CNN that although no specific song was responsible for these vibrations, the activity is likely to have been caused by the booming sound system and the heavy cheering, stamping, and dancing of fans.

Stadium Concerts' and Their 'Bad Blood' With the Environment: As per a Forbes report, Taylor's The Eras Tour was mostly carbon-intensive.

• The tour reportedly amounted to heavy usage of plastic in the form of cups, water bottles, and food packaging, among other items, that end up in landfills, taking hundreds of years to decompose.

• The stadiums chosen for the concerts were not solar-powered and thus added to massive energy consumption because of the heavy noise and light pollution during the three-hour-long live shows.

• The use of gigantic props and the creation of special effects like fake rain and smoke also led to a significant waste of water and caused air and land pollution.

Fans Complaint of 'Plastic Waste' at The Eras Tour: Concert-goers reportedly exchanged friendship bracelets made of plastic beads during The Eras Tour. A netizen wrote on X (formerly Twitter), "Taylor's The Eras Tour was a micro plastic nightmare. There was still glitter everywhere on the ground and little plastic beads from broken bracelets."

• Several fans who attend these concerts spend money on costumes and outfits they buy for one-time usage, leading to the negative impact of fast fashion.

• The ever-changing fashion trends combined with the need for new outfits for every concert result in mountains of textile waste, releasing harmful toxins into our environment.

Rhea Ahuja, who was attending The Eras Tour concert in Chicago with her flatmate, told The Quint, "I purchased a pink glitter skirt with a matching heart-shaped top that I probably wouldn't wear again."

Rhea also revealed that she and her friend had to buy multiple plastic products at the stadium in order to drink water during the concert.

"We had to get a plastic water bottle and a plastic cup because we were not allowed to actually bring the water bottle onto the concert floor due to safety measures. We bought the cups several times, and that was a lot of waste," she added.

Taylor Swift Topped Yard's 'Top 10' Celebrity CO2 Offenders List

A UK-based organisation called Yard conducted research on the carbon emissions of popular celebrities and influencers in July 2022. Taylor Swift topped the list as the biggest CO2 polluter of the year.

• According to Yard, the singer, who was not touring at the time, took a total of 170 flights that year, which amassed a vast 22,923 minutes in the air, equivalent to 15.9 days.

• Taylor's total flight emissions for 2022 stood at 8,293.54 metric tonnes, which is 1,184.8 times more than an average person's total annual emissions.

According to another survey by JetSpy, Taylor Swift's jet spent nearly seven days worth of time flying during the singer's The Eras Tour. The data revealed that her jets often flew to Nashville, her hometown, late at night after the concerts wrapped up.

Taylor's Response to the Yard Report: Taylor received criticism from several fans and environmentalists for her disregard for the climate after the report went public last year.

In response to the now-controversial report, Taylor's spokesperson told Insider in a statement, "To attribute most or all of these trips to her is blatantly incorrect. It’s Swift’s jet, and she is responsible for its environmental output.”

Taylor's further team told the publication, "Before the tour kicked off in March of 2023, Taylor purchased more than double the carbon credits needed to offset all tour travel."

However, Insider was unable to verify the above statement. But before we go further, it's important to understand what carbon credits are and how they work.

According to The Gaurdian, carbon offsets allow individuals and companies to invest in environmental projects around the world in order to balance out their own carbon footprints. These projects are usually based in developing countries and are most commonly designed to reduce future emissions by planting trees, rolling out clean energy technology, or other schemes that soak up CO2 directly from the air.

• However, most carbon-offsetting schemes, like planting trees, traditionally face the criticism that they are not as effective in reducing one's carbon emissions.

• According to Terrapass, Taylor's carbon credits were supposedly purchased in 2023 and cost between $40 and $80 per metric tonne of CO2 that were to be offset.

• However, the Washington Post soon revealed in a report that companies selling these credits often overestimate their emission reductions, rendering Taylor's possible attempts at climate cutdown questionable.

How Can We Make Musical Tours Sustainable?

In times of rapid climate change, it's crucial for every artist to be mindful of their actions and adopt sustainable practices such as waste reduction, eco-friendly transportation, and greener energy usage to minimise their ecological footprint.

• Recently, many artists like Billie Eilish, Miley Cyrus, Jack Johnson, and Dave Matthews Band have made significant attempts to make their concerts eco-friendly.

• Popular British alt-rock band Coldplay took their fans by surprise in 2008 when they announced that they would take active measures to make their tours more sustainable and beneficial by reducing CO2 emissions by 50 percent compared to the previous one.

For their Music of the Spheres concert tour (March 2022–Autumn 2023), Coldplay has successfully reduced 47 percent of their carbon emissions since their previous tours in 2016–17.

Coldplay during their Music of the Spheres concert.

(Photo Courtesy: Twitter/X)

• The band assured that the stage is built with a combination of reusable, lightweight materials, including recycled steel.

• They used solar photovoltaic panels located behind the stage, around the stadium, and the outdoor concourses in order to generate electricity.

• The show's power and lighting were supported by 100 percent renewable energy.

• Ditching commercial and charter flights, Coldplay opted for Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF).

• The band also created a free app with SAF to raise awareness among their fans to use low-carbon means of transportation.

For those who don't know, Radiohead was one of the first bands to raise awareness about the environmental impact of concerts in 2007. The band started making use of solar energy, alternative fuel for transportation, and even stopped consuming meat during their concerts.

Given the rapid climate change that we're dealing with today, I think it's about time we acknowledge that, "It's me, hi, I'm the problem, it's me."

(This article is from The Quint's archive it's being republished in account of the release of 'Taylor Swift: The Ears Tour' Film in India.)