The rockers of Coldplay have some environmental concerns and will not tour in support of their new music until their shows are carbon-neutral.
Frontman Chris Martin broke the news in an interview with BBC News earlier this week, noting that the group is going to take time over the next year to decide “how our tour can not only be sustainable [but] how can it be actively beneficial.” The band last toured from 2016 to 2017 in support of 2015’s A Head Full of Dreams, which made 122 stops across the globe. Martin said the next tour will be the best possible version of their last worldwide trek.
“We would be disappointed if it’s not carbon neutral,” he said. “The hardest thing is the flying side of things. But, for example, our dream is to have a show with no single use plastic, to have it largely solar powered. We’ve done a lot of big tours at this point. How do we turn it around so it’s not so much taking as giving?”
Coldplay isn’t alone, however, as multiple artists have been considering how to provide a positive impact on the environment at their shows. Rising popstar Billie Eilish hopes to make her next tour “as green as possible” with bans on plastic straws at shows and an “Eco-Village” with climate education resources at each venue. She’s also teamed up with Global Citizen to help fans score tickets by fighting climate change. Additionally, the 1975 hopes to make an impact by pledging to plant a tree for each ticket sold to their shows and rather than producing new merchandise shirts, each screen-print will be designed on recyclable shirts.
Yesterday, Coldplay dropped the EP Champion of The World/Daddy, which features five tracks, and on Friday, they’ll release the album Everyday Life. To celebrate the release, they’ll play a two-part concert in Jordan which will be streamed on YouTube, followed by a charity event at London’s Natural History Museum with funds benefiting the non-profit ClimateEarth.
Coldplay has garnered attention over the last two decades with hits like 2000’s “Yellow,” 2002’s “The Scientist,” “Viva La Vida” in 2008, and “Something Just Like This” with The Chainsmokers in 2017.