Featured Change Agent: Reverb Greening Up the Music Industry

Each week, EarthFirst.com will be featuring a new ‘Change Agent’ from Changents.com, a social media site that connects people who are doing good in the world with a support system of advocates, donors, publicity generators and fans.

Today’s featured change agent is Reverb, a non-profit organization that aims to clean up the music industry’s notorious wastefulness and pollution. Adam Gardner, Reverb’s founder, is a musician himself, and long complained to his environmentalist wife, Lauren, about the impact of his band’s tours. That’s when they came up with the idea of Reverb, and their first two projects were the Barenaked Ladies and Alanis Morissette’s ‘Au Natural’ tour in 2004. They’ve since worked with bands like the Dave Matthews Band, John Mayer, the Red Hot Chili Peppers and the Beastie Boys.

Check out this video of Adam Gardner talking about Reverb:

So, what exactly does Reverb do? Essentially, they help bands green up virtually any aspect of their tours, from running their buses on biodiesel to setting up recycling programs and going carbon neutral. They’ve helped bands make their merchandise eco-friendly, reduced waste and offered solar chargers for fans’ electronic devices.

From Reverb’s story on Changents:

Since 2004, we’ve greened 50 tours and 754 events, reduced over 38,000 tons of carbon dioxide, substituted over 265,000 gallons of biodiesel for conventional diesel, and reached over 5 million fans. Did you know that 80 percent of the carbon footprint associated with any tour comes from fans traveling to and from the show?!

While we’re helping bands and fans, we’re also working with more than 1,500 environmental non-profits to promote their messages and campaigns. What’s unique about Reverb is that we have one foot solidly in the environmental community and one foot solidly in the rock world.

For us, it’s about getting the tens of thousands of fans like you that bands are reaching every night to do a little something in their lives, even if it’s simply switching to a reusable water bottle. We’re also encouraging carpooling so fans will reduce their carbon footprints. Concerts are a perfect place to do car sharing – you’re all arriving and leaving at the same time. We’re trying out cool stuff like giving primo parking spaces to DMB concertgoers who motor to the show with at least four in a car.

Reverb’s ‘Eco Villages’ are an attraction themselves at shows, with a festival-like atmosphere and plenty of opportunities for music fans to learn about things like carbon offsetting, register to vote, win cool stuff and check out the latest green technologies. Fans can also get some help from reverb in offsetting their own carbon through the Fan Carbon Offset Program. They’ve partnered with PickupPal to help fans carpool to and from shows.

Want to help Reverb and have a lot of fun at the same time? Join their legion of volunteers and supporters through Changents and help them out with action requests like getting access to biodiesel in various cities, commenting on their blog, checking out their featured videos and helping them out at concerts (you can get free tickets!).

Link [Changents] + [Reverb] + [PickupPal]

Related Posts:

Biofuels and Carbon Credits: Greening Up the Concert Industry
Who’s Who in Green: Adam Gardner
Featured Change Agent: Debrianna and David Mansini-Forlano Give Their Green Tips
Featured Change Agent: Agent 350 is Building a Global Climate Movement
Featured Change Agent: Chad Pregracke is Cleaning Up America’s Rivers