The British band Coldplay She tries to turn her fans into climate rock stars with an app that rewards them for it bring low carbon transport To concerts during the group’s current world tour.
According to Coldplay, there were 80,000 downloads of the smartphone app during the first phase of the 2022 tour, and the band says that Estimated emissions from fan travel decreased by nearly 50 percent Compared to 2016-2017 performances. However, a revision of these numbers points to the limitations of using catalytic applications to calculate and offset carbon emissions.
Coldplay says their goal is to take their tour “Music of the Spheres” Be as sustainable as possible. To that end, the band does everything from installing solar panels in concert halls to traveling on biofuel planes and electric vehicles.
Lots of carbon footprint for the World Tour; However, it was created by tens of thousands of fans who travel to see the band. The app powered by SAP SE shows fans their estimated carbon emissions for a round trip to a show if they travel by car, train, plane, bike and other modes of transportation. Concert-goers are encouraged to choose a climate-friendly method of travel and those who do so will receive a 10 percent discount code on Coldplay merchandise.
The transportation data collected by the app is used to calculate the carbon footprint of the public. “We are committed to reducing all of these emissions through nature-based solutions such as rebuilding and conservation,” the band says on the concert website, noting that they will also plant and maintain at least one tree for every ticket sold.
“In general, these kinds of small incentives tend to have little effect,” said Seth Waynes, a postdoctoral fellow at Concordia University in Montreal who researches consumer behavior and climate change. “Transportation tends to be driven by habits. I expect some people will change their minds about how they travel to a show, but not many.”
He also pointed out that nothing prevents Fans vowed to travel by trainFor example, to be able to charge a discount on Coldplay merchandise and then, on the day of the concert, drive an SUV to the venue, which can skew the band’s carbon accounts.
“This is always a possibility,” said Firoz VR, Senior Vice President of SAP, but noted that “our goal is to create awareness by providing very nice alerts.”
“If you can change anyone’s mindset, that’s a good starting point,” he added. “Sometimes we don’t realize that when a band like Coldplay does it and multiplies hundreds of thousands of fans, it can have a huge impact.”
account carbon footprint The app is based on UK “conversion factors” that convert emissions from different types of transport into estimates of pounds of carbon dioxide emitted per person. But these conversion factors differ for shipping in other parts of the world where Coldplay is touring, such as the United States and Latin America.
“We’ve taken an approach, but I think it’s a reasonably good approach,” VR said. “We have to show data on the full number of fans who come to the stadium. So we don’t get very accurate data on everyone.”
The 2022 releases are based on data collected by the app, which was not present in the 2016-2017 round. Broadcasts for those shows are estimates based on “post-event surveys, ticket information, venues and promoters in each region the previous tour visited,” according to a statement provided by band management to Bloomberg Green. “The total distance traveled by the propellers in each common vehicle type was then assessed and internationally recognized carbon emissions conversion factors… were used to estimate the resulting carbon footprint.”
At concerts, Coldplay would play his hit song “The Scientist,” with Chris Martin singing, “I Was Just Guessing Numbers and Numbers”. The band’s estimate that first-stage fan emissions from the current tour nearly halved between 2016 and 2017 is not an assumption. But it is misleading, as different data and methodologies have been used to calculate the carbon footprint of each flight.
However, Wynes praised Coldplay’s efforts to reduce the climate impact of their shows and increase concert-goers’ awareness of their transportation options. “It can help send a broader signal that members of a band that potentially a lot of people adore really care about, and tell their fans that maybe it’s something they should care about as well,” he said.
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