Low carbone footprint of touring activities and eco-responsibility of venues and festivals : is it possible ?

Marion Petit is in charge of sustainable practices at Grabuge, the pop music industry network of the Grand Est region. She coordinates projects aiming at equity, eco-responsibility and health prevention for the members of the network and more broadly for all the actors of pop music in the region. The Grabuge network supports them in the implementation of prevention actions for professionals and public audiences.

Grabuge is the network of pop music industry in the Grand Est region. It was born in 2020, following the merger of the 3 former regions Alsace, Lorraine and Champagne-Ardenne.

The main objective of the network is to allow players to act in a common ecosystem, while remaining independent and nourishing it with their variety of points of view, professions and aesthetics. Grabuge counts about 85 members today. Joining the network is a form of support and participation in the movement. The network resonates beyond the members since it is open to all actors of pop music, whatever their project, their desire and their aesthetic.

Sustainable Development & Quality Manager for the Cabaret Vert Festival (Charleville-Mézières / France), Jean Perissin is in charge of managing the sustainable development actions of the Ardennes festival since 2009.

Applying the Cabaret Vert's commitments through: its environmental and sustainable catering charters, energy efficiency and sobriety, soft mobility, a proactive short circuit policy that excludes food products from the festival's stalls, selective sorting, team involvement, socio-economic impact study, the Cabaret Vert's Sustainable Development missions are transversal and irrigate all of the festival's poles.
Following the success of the 2022 edition (125,000 spectators over 5 days), the festival is extending its ecological transition with the implementation of a low-carbon strategy for all its activities.

Following the success of the 2022 edition (125,000 spectators over 5 days), the festival is extending its ecological transition with the implementation of a low-carbon strategy for all its activities.

Frédéric Delvigne, is a journalist and has collaborated on several editorial projects. Particularly interested in themes that affect society and ecology, he is now in charge of sustainable projects for EventChange and co-organizes the Sustainable Culture Forum.

EventChange aims to accelerate the sustainability of the cultural and event sectors by bringing together actors and developing the best possible solutions. Concretely, it is about proposing a platform of exchanges of good practices, tools, trainings, accompaniments and mutualizations for the transition in culture.

Donat Kaufmann is a writer, activist and musician. He sings and plays different instruments in the Krautpop-band One Sentence. Supervisor. In 2019, he co-founded Music Declares Emergency Switzerland. For MDE, he most recently conducted a study on the carbon footprint of the Swiss festival landscape.

Music Declares Emergency is an environmental protection organization, founded in the UK in 2019 by drummer Fay Milton (Savages) and fellow musicians. Since then, more than 6000 musicians, festivals and organisations from the music industry have signed MDEs declaration for a more sustainable music industry. Among them artists like Billie Eilish or Radiohead. Today, MDE is active in 13 countries. While being involved in local projects, the different groups get ready to work on international campaigns.

 

Daniela Weinmann is a songwriter and electronic musician who performs under the pseudonym Odd Beholder. Since 2019, she has been campaigning on behalf of Music Declares Emergency Switzerland for better climate protection and more circumspection in the music industry. For MDE, she most recently filmed a video reportage or a stocktaking of the sustainability of the Swiss festival landscape.

Music Declares Emergency is an environmental protection organization, founded in the UK in 2019 by drummer Fay Milton (Savages) and fellow musicians. Since then, more than 6000 musicians, festivals and organisations from the music industry have signed MDEs declaration for a more sustainable music industry. Among them artists like Billie Eilish or Radiohead. Today, MDE is active in 13 countries. While being involved in local projects, the different groups get ready to work on international campaigns.
 

Emmanuelle Cuttitta is the head of Le Gueulard +, a club in Nilvange. She also is memeber of the board of Syndicat des Musiques Actuelles, and consultant for CNM commisions.

With the Les Eclairantes project, Le Gueulard Plus wanted to establish a process of valuing women artists through artistic and cultural education, awareness-raising events on the theme and collaborative work sessions. This project is part of the structure's long-standing commitment to equity, diversity, equality and parity, which has been reinforced in its CSR program.

Déclic is a new step for FEDELIMA and the SMA in the deepening of their involvement towards a model of sustainable pop music industry. However, both organizations are well aware that the carbon footprint is not the only element of the ecological transition and that climate change is not the only sign of the social and planetary limits being exceeded.

In 2021, at the request of their members, the two organizations launched a first awareness-raising cycle for their members.
A few months later: the project is ready to be launched!
The two organizations have joined forces with the ekodev agency, which will provide methodological support for the completion of 18 carbon audits on a sample of representative organizations in the sector. This first stage of the project will consolidate existing data in order to draw up an objective assessment of the sector's environmental footprint. With the help of ekodev, the challenge is to design trajectories to support all organizations in the sector in reducing their impacts and changing their production and distribution methods to adapt to current restrictions and anticipate those to come.

What is the SMA?
In order to defend and promote this intermediary space in the pop music industry, Fédurok and the Fédération des Scènes de Jazz et de Musiques Improvisées (FSJ) have joined forces to create a professional employers' union: the SMA, the National Union of Small and Very Small Non-Profit Organizations of Pop Music.
The SMA is for all small (10 to 50 employees) and very small (less than 10 employees) organizations with limited profitability, which recognize themselves in this intermediate and alternative field, and whose activities consist of distributing works, and/or accompanying practices, and/or supporting creation, and/or training practitioners in the current music sector. The SMA counts more than 540 members to date.

What is FEDELIMA?
The FEDELIMA is, since January 1st, 2013, a national network which gathers places and projects dedicated to pop music on the whole French territory. Its offices are based in Nantes. Its purpose is to federate and develop any initiative of general interest in the field of pop music, to help its members to anticipate cultural, economic, technological, political and social changes, to support them in their development by proposing adequate means and tools in a concern of complementarity and cooperation, and this from the local to the international level.